


A Heart To Kill

by kkimbly



Series: Dead Alive! [2]
Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Science Fiction, Alternate Universe - Zombie Apocalypse, Copious amounts of immunology, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-30
Updated: 2021-01-30
Packaged: 2021-03-09 04:02:11
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 8
Words: 36,579
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27278428
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kkimbly/pseuds/kkimbly
Summary: Experiments, Jaemin has learnt, is akin to life. You can plan for it all you like but something will inevitably waltz in and mess up all the meticulous planning and preparations, shoving you fifty steps back from the end you were working yourself half to death for.In Jaemin's case, that something is often because of a certain Lee Donghyuck or Park Jisung. Sometimes, he gets thrown a curveball in the form of a disproportionately frustrating, baffling problem.Like a new virus.
Relationships: Huang Ren Jun/Lee Donghyuck | Haechan, Lee Jeno/Na Jaemin, Park Jisung/Zhong Chen Le
Series: Dead Alive! [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1985857
Comments: 40
Kudos: 58





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> The usual warnings apply (blood, gore, too much immunology, possible deaths etc)
> 
> Things have eased up and I'm aiming to complete this and TAD by the end of November but we'll see! As always, please feel free to interact with me and share your thoughts :D

\- 04:08:47

The dried grass rustled, a whisper of sound that carried over the breeze. The curl of wind danced jauntily, teasingly passing its message to a pair of ears that pricked up in alert. The world seemed to hold its breath.

A blur of motion, and the rabbit shot off as a boy leapt at it, missing it by inches.

The girl behind him cursed soundly, much too fluently for a face that still retained the softness of youth. “I told you that we ought to have went with the gun,” she grumbled, shoving the knife back into the ragged canvas bag slung over her shoulder. From the sling, a friendship bracelet hung, the colourful strings grey and rust coloured in some places.

“The gun would have made too much noise,” the boy replied wearily, the words as well-worn and frail as the snapback he wore on his head.

The girl sighed, resuming her aggravated stomping around the parched field. “It’s just too bad that we got here late,” she muttered, “Or we might have been able to get our hands on some chickens.” She perked up suddenly, an idea entering her head, “Hey,” she called to the boy, “Do you think there might be some kimchi? You know,” she made a vague motion to the ground when the boy stared at her in puzzlement, “Grandma always buried her kimchi in the ground. We could check to see if there’s any in the backyard.”

The two of them hurried to the back of the farm, ducking through the crumbling stone wall. Their feet sank into the soft mud, trampling on the limp shreds of cabbage leaves littering the compost. “Where do you think it is – ” the girl’s voice cut off sharply. She flung out her arm, halting the boy.

Motionless and silent, the two of them watched the human figure lying prone on the ground a few metres away from them, muscles tensed and ready. Their gaze was immediately drawn to the round lip of an earthenware pot peeked out from under it. The boy moved his lips to the girl’s ear, his voice barely a murmur. “I think it’s dead, do you see the maggots?”

“I don’t know how you expect me to see anything from this distance,” she whispered back but obliged anyway, straining her eyes at the body. They approached the body gingerly, gripping their weapons tightly. As they got closer the two of them suddenly relaxed when they caught sight of the hole at the back of its head. Maggots wriggled inside the hole and on its rotting flesh, the pungent smell putrid in the air.

The boy nudged the body away with his foot and as it rolled over the two of them grimaced at the sight of the face, half rotted away with shreds of slimy flesh clinging to the yellowed skull. Maggots and worms squirmed in the empty eye sockets and the boy’s stomach turned. “You sure you want to eat that?” the girl took the words out of his mouth, pointing at the uncovered pot. The movement had shifted the soil, revealing the weather-beaten pot, its lid cracked from age.

“Beggars can’t be choosers,” the boy replied cheerfully.

The boy got to work digging up the pot while the girl wandered around the garden, pulling up whatever vegetables the people before them had missed. She twisted a faucet curiously, muttering to herself in triumph when a trickle of water started to flow. The girl washed her hands, wiping the grime away from her face. “What are you doing?” the boy asked breathlessly, thin arms straining to carry the pot.

“Washing up,” she replied shortly, wiping his face brusquely. She took out a few lettuce leaves from the bag, rinsing it under the water and shoving one into each of their mouths. “Here, have a snack.”

“Ew,” he complained through that mouthful. “I hate raw lettuce.”

“Beggars can’t be choosers,” she replied cheekily, throwing his words back at him and prancing away before he could take a swipe at her.

He followed after her through the crumbling wall they had come through. “It would be nice if he had gotten that rabbit,” he said wistfully. “We could have had a proper barbeque, with kimchi and lettuce and all.”

The girl bumped his shoulder playfully, “I guess we’ll just have to do with salads,” she said wryly. “The vegan diet is a trend these days anyway.”

\- 02:18:01

Na Jaemin took a deep, steadying breath. Count to ten, he chanted to himself, trying to channel Jeno’s soothing voice. Count to ten and _relax_ –

He closed his eyes and inhaled again. This time the breath left him in a furious rush and he gripped the aluminium wrapped Eppendorf tube in between his thumb and index finger tightly. He yanked the aluminium covered wrapper and tossed it aside carelessly, bringing it up to eye level and futilely trying to get every microscopic drop of liquid out. “Oh, bloody hell,” he grumbled, giving up. He squinted at the half-filled plastic tip in resignation before giving up and pushing out the liquid into the tube he prepared earlier, pipetting up and down to mix the diluted antibody.

The protocol called for 10uL of antibodies but _someone_ had used up the tube of antibodies without refilling it or letting anyone know. That _someone_ had literally just given Jaemin grief earlier in the day for not leaving him enough TBST to use and causing him to have to make the long trip to the cold room to get the stock solution, and doesn’t Jaemin know that he hates having to walk so far so could he please refill it before it runs low?

Well now Jaemin is at his final step of his experiment and he doesn’t even have his antibodies. And they don’t have any stock for him to refill from either.

Lee Donghyuck, that damn hypocrite. Jaemin spared a moment to send a hate-filled curse at the other man who was no doubt sleeping peacefully in his bed now.

His samples will just have to suck it up then. It’s 2 am, Jaemin has been working for almost 21 hours and he has long since lost all motivation. Shoving his samples into the fridge to incubate them, Jaemin ripped off his latex gloves, tossing them into the yellow biohazard bag and wearily walking out into the office space.

A lamp glowed from the end of the row of tables, a lone lighthouse in the sea of darkness. Jaemin’s lips pressed into a thin line, exhaustion leaking away rapidly. He strode towards the light, circling around to peer over the top of the cupboard the table was hidden behind. A teenage boy was bent over a thick textbook, gangly legs awkwardly splayed around him as he twirled a pen in a large hand, head bobbing to a silent rhythm as he read. Jaemin narrowed his eyes, silently boring a hole through the top of his head.

The teenager yawned, unfolding from his atrocious posture to stretch languidly in the swivel chair. The chair squeaked noisily before a resounding crash echoed through the office as the teenager startled violently, falling off the chair onto the floor in a mess of limbs.

“What the _fuck_ ,” Park Jisung swore, swallowing the last of his words too late.

Jaemin frowned, “Language,” he reprimanded, “Why are you still – ”

“Why are you still here?” Jisung spoke over him, “We didn’t see you at dinner, not even at breakfast,” he added as an afterthought. Jaemin ignored him, walking out from behind the cabinet to pick up an empty snack packet delicately between his fingers.

“What’s this,” he deadpanned.

Jisung flushed, discreetly shoving a few other snack packets under the table where they crinkled loudly, thoroughly nullifying his efforts. There was a pause where Jaemin stared pointedly at Jisung while the teenager determinedly stared at a spot over Jaemin’s shoulder, avoiding his gaze. 

“I thought I told you to ration out your snacks,” Jaemin said disappointedly.

“I’m a growing child, I ought to eat more,” Jisung said in one breath without missing a beat.

“You’re a growing child, you ought to be asleep,” Jaemin fired back, not the slightest bit inclined to let the kid gain an inch on him.

“I’m studying!” Jisung retorted, slamming the immunology textbook close and knocking over an empty can in the process. Jaemin watched it clatter and roll off the table with zero surprise. The kid was a walking hazard. “I’m living out the life of a student I never got to live,” he said with a flourish, sounding much too energetic anyone should reasonably be at 2 am.

“Don’t bother, you’re not missing out on anything,” Jaemin started picking the trash off the table, grabbing the hood of Jisung’s sweater last and lifting him bodily from the chair. “Now, bed.”

Jisung pushed his hand off irritably but obliged, shoving the textbook into the cupboard and swiping all the pens and papers to one corner in his version of cleaning up. “It’s headache-inducing,” Jisung said as they walked out into the hallway. “I have no idea how you guys got through this.”

“That’s why anyone who has a PhD has permanent head damage,” Jaemin replied without thinking.

Jisung squinted at him. Jaemin immediately regretted his words, speeding up discreetly. “Was that supposed to be a joke? God, that was really lame. I thought it was just Jeno who made bad jokes.”

“Apparently, the virus isn’t the only contagious thing here,” Jaemin said, throwing Jeno under the bus with no hesitation. It’s a dog eat dog world after all. “But really,” Jaemin changed the subject, “I still don’t understand why you’re so insistent on reading that textbook.”

Jisung shrugged, politely holding the door open for Jaemin. Seems like he didn’t lose all of his manners after all. “I’m bored. I feel my brain rotting away day by day – ”

“Nothing new there.”

“ – and it would do me some good to learn something,” Jisung continued loudly as though Jaemin haven’t spoken.

Jaemin thought over the words for a moment. “You’re tired of only being allowed to clean up the mice cages, aren’t you?”

“Bingo.”

01:02:04

The girl put aside the damp towel and helped the boy sit up in bed. “Here, I made you some porridge.”

“I told you I’m allergic to raw vegetables,” was all the boy muttered. “It’s all because of that damn salad you made me eat for dinner. No, I’m not hungry,” he pushed the spoon away as it neared his face.

“Either you eat the porridge or I feed you,” the girl replied, sickly sweet.

The boy side-eyed her before taking the bowl reluctantly. He took a bite and flinched. “Did you even put in any salt?”

The girl snatched the spoon back, scooping a spoonful for herself. “It’s fine!” she said with a scowl. “Now you’re just being picky.”

The boy had scarcely eaten half of it before he pushed the bowl back again. “I’m good for now, but thanks.” He lay down, pulling the covers around him as his eyes fell shut. “I’ll be up and running in a day or two, don’t worry about it.”

00:00:00

The girl slammed onto the floor painfully, shockwaves radiating from her back from the impact. Her arms strained as she fought to keep her brother’s face away from her, his snapping teeth grazing her cheek.

She tried to buck him off, resisting the involuntary scream of panic that climbed up her throat. She flung her arm out to the side, fumbling for the knife that had fallen off the table in the tussle. The bed thudded loudly as their flailing limbs kicked at it.

“Soyeon?” A muffled voice called out from behind the door. “Are you alright?”

“Yes!” she answered, voice pitched much too high to be reassuring.

Her brother growled, loud enough that the approaching footsteps halted outside the door. “What was that?”

“No, don’t come in – ” she started to say as the door was flung open. In a moment her brother was lifted off her. She squeezed her eyes shut, heart dropping in her chest despite knowing what was to come. The drops that splattered on her face was scalding hot, mixing with the hot tears that leaked out of her eyes.

There was silence in the room save for the laboured breathing. There was a deep inhale. “Clean up. I’ll get the others.”

The girl kept her eyes shut, listening to the sound of something being dragged over the floor with bile rising in her. With her eyes still closed, she clambered to her feet unsteadily, feeling her way out of the room.

“What’s going on?” another girl demanded, rushing up to her. “Why, what – ” she broke off, confusion and grief choking her up.

“I don’t know,” she replied numbly. “He didn’t get bitten, he was just fine yesterday, I don’t know why…” she trailed off. “I don’t know.”

**00:00:01**


	2. 1

12:18:39

Jisung cursed, almost losing his grip on the bottle, his latex gloves slippery with condensation on the cold glass bottle. A hand plucked the bottles out of his arms before he could do something worthy of an accident report.

“I told you not to carry things around like that,” the precise voice Jisung was hoping not to hear resounding next to him. “Were you not listening?”

“And I told you that the autoclaves are much too far for me to bother with two trips,” Jisung replied, hefting the remaining bottles up, “Do you ever listen to other people?” He tried to hide his smirk when he heard a long-suffering sigh from Jaemin.

“Put them away and come for dinner,” Jaemin said, quickly giving up on the argument. The past two years was more than enough time for Jisung to wear down Jaemin’s edges.

Jisung shoved the bottles into the racks and hurried after Jaemin. Jeno promised to make kimchi fried rice today and he wouldn’t put it past Chenle to eat more than his share. “Are you joining us for dinner?” Jisung asked curiously as they walked through the hallways of RIPST towards the lounge for their nightly communal meals. Jeno was the one to come up with the idea, implement and uphold it, seemingly oblivious to the lack of enthusiasm from the rest of them. No one had outright said anything yet, none of them willing to be the one to wipe the smile off his face.

And so with the exception of Chenle, the rest of them grudgingly arranged their schedules around Jeno’s attempts at cooking.

Jaemin on the other hand, simply didn’t turn up for the meals.

(“It’s okay, he’s usually like this,” Jeno had said, sounding unbothered. “Tell him that his share is in the fridge if you see him, will you Jisung?”)

“Jeno’s making fried rice today, isn’t he?” Jaemin said instead.

“I didn’t know that you had a preference for foods,” Jisung commented as he pushed the door open to the lounge. With how much time Jaemin spent working, he was more surprised that Jaemin even knew what was on the menu. In the lounge, Lee Jeno was setting down a bowl of kimchi stew, nodding along pacifyingly as another teenager prattled on about something. His glasses were fogged up from the steam of the stew and he was no doubt too distracted to actually listen, but still he smiled placidly, murmuring something in response.

Zhong Chenle was sprawled over a worn armchair, his arms waving about to illustrate as he worked very hard at his role as the emotional support. He caught sight of them, breaking off to call out a greeting. Jisung grinned, coming over to put him into a headlock and inconspicuously burying his nose into Chenle’s hair.

“Did you make all this yourself?” Jaemin asked, coming over to take the plates Jeno was balancing dangerously with a plate of fried rice and setting them on the table.

“Jaemin,” Jeno said in surprise, “You’re eating with us today?”

“Isn’t this too much food?” Jaemin’s voice sounded a tad sharper than usual. “We need to ration our food, we don’t know when the food supply might stop coming.”

Jisung looked between the two of them uneasily.

“The food supply is stabilising,” Jeno said in his gentle voice, “I heard from them yesterday that they managed to secure some land for agriculture and volunteers have joined in to help source for food.”

“We have to be prepared,” Jaemin insisted, apparently not hearing a word. There was a strain of exhaustion in his voice, some suppressed tension Jisung didn’t notice until now. “We can’t waste food like this.”

There was an uncomfortable silence for a beat. Jeno’s face was turned away, concealing his expression from the rest of them. Jaemin looked angry and frustrated and sorry all at once, eyebrows pulled together.

“It won’t be a waste if we manage to finish it,” Chenle broke the tension easily, “We’ll just keep the leftovers in the fridge and Jeno can finally take a break from cooking for a few days. He must be sick of cooking by now.”

Jisung moved to take a seat by Chenle’s side, following his lead and feigning obliviousness. He distinctly felt like he was back with his family when his parents fought over dinner again.

“Oh, thank god. Food at last!” Lee Donghyuck cheered noisily as he entered the room, dissolving the last of the tension. Huang Renjun was trailing behind him, wrapped in a smart black coat and looking disgruntled as usual.

Jaemin glared at Donghyuck as they took a seat opposite him. “You used up the antibodies, didn’t you?” his voice dripped venom, his entire visage ominous even while innocuously ladling out kimchi stew for them.

“What antibodies?” Donghyuck asked, unfazed, taking the bowl that was heading Jisung’s way to put it down in front of Renjun. Jaemin rolled his eyes, making it a point to ladle more tofu into the bowl he passed to Jisung. “Oh, that. Hendery said that he can give us some. I’ll probably be able to meet him sometime this weekend,” he said thoughtfully.

“That’s nice, but I definitely needed them sometime last night,” Jaemin said flatly. Jisung shuddered internally, Jaemin was scariest when he spoke in a deadpan voice like that. It was impossible to know what he was thinking.

“Oops,” Donghyuck said offhandedly, either impressively unfazed or dangerously unaware of the ticking time bomb. “Oh wow, Jeno, this fried rice is amazing.”

Jeno’s eyes curved into crescents as he smiled, the remaining tension in his shoulders leaking away at the warm praise. “I’m glad you like it.” For the briefest moment, his eyes darted to Jaemin, so quickly Jisung didn’t know if he had imagined it. Jaemin for his part, didn’t look up. He had descended into a moody silence as he ate his dinner.

“I’m going out with you tomorrow, right Renjun?” Chenle asked, reaching past Jisung to snag the kimchi. Jisung shoved at his arm playfully, regretting it when the action caused Chenle to almost upturn the plate of kimchi on the table.

Renjun didn’t reply immediately. When the silence dragged on, the gazes of everyone at the table drifted to him. Renjun looked pensive, chopsticks hanging limply from his delicate fingers.

“Renjun?” Chenle prompted.

Renjun blinked. He looked up, directing his gaze straight at Jaemin, the only one who still hasn’t looked up. “I think we should reduce the supply of drugs.” Renjun announced without preamble.

There was a moment of confused silence.

“What?” Donghyuck’s voice was pitched higher than usual, “ _Injunnie_ , what the hell?” It was a measure of how stunned he was that he couldn’t say anything more than that.

“There’s something going on,” Renjun pressed on, heedless of the astonishment of everyone at the table. “I was out distributing the drug today and,” he hesitated, “I’ve been hearing about zombie attacks more often than usual. It’s a little concerning.”

“Isn’t that more reason to distribute the drugs?” Jisung broke in.

Renjun bit his lip, he looked like he was considering his words carefully.

“What is it?” Donghyuck demanded impatiently.

“One of them told me that they heard about someone who turned without a bite,” Renjun said slowly, reluctantly.

“So? We know that they can spread through saliva,” the words came out more scornful that he intended.

“That’s the thing,” Renjun replied, not the least bit offended. He’s always been the least touchy among them. “They didn’t have a single zombie in their midst. One day their friend fell ill – classic symptoms, fever and everything – and they put it off as him eating something off, and the next thing they know the friend had turned and was attacking them all.”

“I suppose that entire group has turned by now then,” Jaemin finally spoke up. “Them, and anyone who has potentially shared a plate of food with that person.” He spoke coolly, voice disinterested despite the magnitude of his words.

“I mean it could be an off event,” Renjun tried, “Maybe that friend got bitten and didn’t notice the wound or something.” He didn’t sound convinced either.

“Well, I suppose it wouldn’t hurt to be a little careful,” Jeno put down his spoon. “But reducing the supply of drugs might slow down the recovery of the population.” Jeno glanced at Jaemin, “What do you think, Jaem?”

Something flashed in Jaemin’s eyes briefly. But when he spoke his face was smoothed over, blank and inscrutable. “What do you think, Renjun?” he ignored Jeno’s question, “Shall we sacrifice some people based off something that could be a chance incident?” his tone was even, but the words were caustic enough that even Chenle glanced at him in puzzlement. 

“When in doubt, err on the side of caution,” Renjun replied, unperturbed. “We’ve been in this shit for almost three years and we’ve never heard of anyone turning spontaneously. This is the first time. And like you said, people who were in contact with the saliva would turn. If this isn’t an isolated incident, god knows how many infected are walking around by now. The last thing I want is to get caught in a horde of zombies.”

“That’s not going to happen, Injunnie,” Donghyuck dismissed. “It’ll take at least a few days, oh, wait, maybe not.”

Renjun raised an eyebrow. “Exactly. Is this person index zero? If he isn’t, we’re screwed. If he is, we’re screwed. Or at least I will be, because while handing out pills someone might just get into a frenzy and decide to bite me.”

“Kinky,” Donghyuck muttered.

A sense of horror grew in Jisung’s chest. His breath came shallowly, he didn’t realise how tense he had become until he felt Chenle’s hand covering his under the table, squeezing. Jisung gripped his fingers back, anchoring himself and trying to calm down.

“Ah, damn,” Donghyuck slammed his chopsticks down, tilting his head back to sigh at the ceiling, “I knew things were going well for way too long.”

12:20:05

“We’ll eat a little less tomorrow,” Jisung promised, putting the last of the dishes into the sink. “I won’t snack either.”

There wasn’t a single bite of food left from the dinner and after that conversation, Jisung was starting to feel that perhaps they really have been starting to get more comfortable than they should be.

Jaemin didn’t answer. Jisung peeked at him carefully, it wasn’t unusual behaviour for Jaemin to be quiet, but it made reading his moods all the harder. “The food was really good, I suppose it isn’t surprising that we finished it all.”

“That has always been his signature dish,” Jaemin said, rather unexpectedly. Jisung had been preparing himself to do a monologue for the next ten minutes. “Jeno isn’t the best at cooking, so he’s really proud of that dish.”

“Did he cook often?” Jisung scrubbed a plate, handing it to Jaemin to rinse. “Before all this, I mean.”

Jaemin shook his head, “I normally did the cooking. But whenever he did, he would choose to make this.”

“Because he liked it?” Jisung guessed, “Or you did?”

Jaemin snorted, the faintest smile lifting his lips. “Because I mentioned that it was good _once_.”

Jisung huffed in laughter. It was so typical of Jeno to latch onto a single incident and run with it, like how telling his grandma that he likes her egg rolls meant that he would leave with boxes and boxes of them every single time he visited her. “Do you actually like it?”

Jaemin shrugged, putting away the plate to the drying rack. “I don’t have anything I particularly like.”

Huh. Jisung tilted his head, watching Jaemin’s back. Jisung might be an idiot, but he’s not that stupid. There was a huge, glaring truth in Jaemin’s silence, and a tacit understanding to not point it out.

“What do you think about what Renjun said?” Jisung asked as they squeezed out of the narrow pantry, switching off the portable electric stove as they did.

“I think that if there’s a new virus, I can burn all the data I’ve accumulated for the past three years,” Jaemin said, more bitterly than Jisung expected. He seemed to have realised it too, because he continued, voice abruptly controlled and even, “It makes sense to lie low for a while, because if we’re dealing with a new virus, we can expect to have a few outbreaks after this.”

Jisung stayed quiet, fighting to keep his emotions at bay. Just the thought of walking, living and breathing while the monsters roamed outside, not knowing when he could die, was enough to push him back into the person he had been when it first started. Jaemin’s grip on his shoulders startled him out of the rabbit hole of his thoughts. Jisung glanced at him, Jaemin was looking straight ahead. Squeezing his shoulder, Jaemin walked ahead, heading towards his room without another word.

12:20:48

There was a quiet knock on the door. Jaemin looked up from the notebook he had been scribbling in. “Come in,” he said unnecessarily, knowing already who it was. No one else would dare to disturb his peace when his door was closed. Jeno’s head poked through the door. Drops of water dripped from his black hair, his glasses fogged up from the shower. Jaemin’s heart squeezed at the sight.

“Is this a bad time?” Jeno asked tentatively, still standing in the doorway as though afraid that Jaemin would snap at him.

Jaemin watched him for a moment. “Not at all,” he finally said. “I could use some company.” From the way Jeno’s eyes lit up, he knew that he had said the right thing. Jaemin got up from where he was seated at the desk, snagging the towel and tugging Jeno to the makeshift bed. He took the glasses off Jeno gently and started towelling his hair dry. “You’ll catch your death with a cold. It’s the middle of winter, you should keep yourself warm.”

“Yes, mom,” the towel concealed his face but Jaemin could practically feel Jeno rolling his eyes. The towel fell away and Jaemin met Jeno’s gaze.

Jeno’s eyes were dark, looking at Jaemin unflinchingly despite their proximity. Jaemin kept utterly still, stretched taut between two conflicting choices. Jeno’s eyes darted to his lips. Jaemin pulled the towel over his head again, towelling his fringe. “Don’t remind me,” he said, voice not wavering the slightest. “I’m constantly reminded that we have three children here.”

“Three?” If Jeno was disappointed, he didn’t show it.

“Hazard number one, number two and the biggest headache,” Jaemin recited.

Jeno laughed loudly. Jaemin watched him fondly. Unable to suppress his affection, he reached forward and brushed Jeno’s hair from his eyes. He turned away quickly before Jeno could react, pretending to fluff up his pillow. “Well?” This time, he had to fight to keep his voice steady. He really had to get a grip on himself, he can’t keep slipping up like this. “Was there something you wanted to talk about?”

“Do I really need a reason to come and talk to you?” Jeno asked quietly.

Jaemin thought he might have misheard the question. He turned back, “What?”

Jeno blinked, shaking his head. “It’s nothing,” the smile was bland, nothing like the one from before. “I just wanted to check up on you. Are you alright?”

“Why wouldn’t I be?” Jaemin asked, genuinely confused.

Jeno sighed, it sounded more tired than usual. “Renjun thinks that the number of zombie attacks are increasing, you’re killing yourself in the lab, people might be turning spontaneously,” he counted off his fingers. “Take your pick.”

That’s right, Jaemin shook himself mentally. Work. He had to focus on that. They’re in the middle of the apocalypse. “It’s too soon to make a conclusion. We’ll have to wait to see what happens before deciding what to do next. But Renjun’s right, it doesn’t hurt to be more careful for now.”

“That wasn’t what I was asking – ” Jeno cut himself off. He made to get up, “Why do I bother,” he muttered to himself.

Jaemin grabbed Jeno’s hand, stopping him from leaving. He released it almost as quickly as he grabbed it, suddenly aware that there might have been a line that he crossed. “I’m sorry,” he said. There’s so much that he feels like he ought to apologise for, yet none of the words came to him.

Jeno visibly softened. Jaemin’s heart broke. Jeno was much too good for him. Jeno sat back down and hesitantly reached out to cover Jaemin’s hand with his. Jaemin turned his hand around, intertwining his fingers with Jeno and dropping his gaze, studying the pattern on the bedcovers. An unspoken conversation passed between them.

Without looking up, Jaemin knew that Jeno saw everything that Jaemin could not vocalise. All but the deepest one. “You’re not alone in this, Jaemin. You don’t have to feel like you have to solve this by yourself. Besides,” he went on encouragingly, “Perhaps it’s like what Renjun said, it’s just a freak coincidence.”

Obviously, neither of them believed that but Jaemin appreciated the effort. “Do you want a massage?”

Jaemin nodded woodenly despite himself, hating himself for it. Jeno smiled, getting up to turn off the lights. Jaemin watched his silhouette move back towards him. Cloaked in the darkness, Jaemin felt hidden yet exposed, much too intimate yet entirely concealed from Jeno. “Turn over,” Jeno’s voice sent goosebumps up his arms. He pushed Jaemin gently down onto the pillow. The mattress shifted as Jeno got onto his knees above Jaemin, hands kneading his shoulders and back.

“You spend all day hunched over and don’t exercise,” Jeno admonished mildly, “It’s a wonder that your shoulders haven’t stiffened up entirely.”

Jaemin sighed, relaxing as Jeno’s long fingers worked the knots out. “Mmm,” he groaned wordlessly. He felt himself slowly turning into jelly. Perhaps he can finally get a good sleep tonight. Perhaps his brain had turned into jelly too because the words left his mouth before he managed to think them over. “Can you stay tonight?”

The fingers stopped moving. There was a protracted silence. “Of course, Jaemin.” He heard it all day, every day, from everyone, yet nothing was as intimate as hearing Jeno say his name in that mild, gentle voice of his.

“Do you want a massage too?” Jaemin turned to his side, making way for Jeno to lie down.

“I’m good,” his breath brushed over Jaemin’s lips. Jeno laughed a little, abashed. “This bed is a little small, isn’t it?”

“Can’t be as bad as the one we had when we were renting that goshiwon in our first year,” Jaemin replied with a chuckle, deliberately ignoring the implications. Stupid, stupid heart. Don’t start what you can’t finish, and yet Jaemin can’t stop himself from wanting more and taking more, not even when he knows that it’s a futile hope, merely borrowed time in the world that they live in. 

He cautiously snuggled closer, careful to not touch Jeno. Jeno snorted, suddenly wrapping his arms around Jaemin and pulling him close. “Sleep, Jaemin.” There was amusement in his voice. Jaemin would have believed his nonchalance if he wasn’t listening to the frantic thudding of his heart right under his ears. “Stop overthinking so damn much all the time.”

Stupid, stupid heart.

There was nothing left to hope for, and yet he still reaches forward, hoping, wanting, pulling Jeno towards him and holding that inextinguishable warmth close.

18:13:05

“Guys! We have a problem!” Donghyuck’s voice echoed through the lab.

“Man, that’s a voice to rival mine,” Chenle commented, impressed. Jaemin nudged Jisung’s hand, adjusting his aim so that the drop of liquid landed exactly in the middle. “That way it spreads out better over the slide,” Jaemin instructed, eyes laser focused on the samples that Jisung was handling.

“Guys!” Donghyuck’s voice grew in volume as he approached. Jeno peered past his computer curiously. Jaemin was now murmuring to Chenle, explaining the theory behind the experiment.

“Na Jaemin!” Jisung’s eardrums threatened to explode as Donghyuck rounded the corner with Renjun close behind. “Stop pretending to be deaf!”

Jaemin straightened up from where he was carefully lifting the parafilm into the aluminium wrapped box. “Oh. You’re here,” Jaemin greeted mildly, as though he wasn’t the first one to roll his eyes as soon as he heard him yelling.

“I brought news with me,” Donghyuck said breathlessly.

Jaemin ostentatiously looked past him at Renjun, “Hello, news.”

Jeno sniggered, or at least he attempted to disguise his giggle as one. Donghyuck narrowed his eyes, looking between the two of them. “Takes one bad joke to know another.”

“Pot. Kettle.” Jaemin looked Donghyuck up and down smugly.

“Focus, Donghyuck,” Renjun reminded when it looked like Donghyuck was readying himself for a fight.

Donghyuck exhaled noisily and scowled, “You’re truly the most exasperating person I’ve ever met.”

“It’s a mutual feeling,” Jaemin batted back, sounding almost bored as he shut the door of the benchtop incubator.

“What we talked about seems to be true, unfortunately,” Renjun said crisply, cutting in when neither of them seemed inclined to stop making jabs at each other.

“What did we talk about again?” Jaemin said distractedly, making up a concoction of buffers that Jisung still has to refer to the IDT DNATM post it note he stuck at eye level for.

“The increase in zombies, people turning without warning, the possibility that it isn’t an off event,” Renjun said impatiently, “Keep up, Jaemin.”

Ooooh, Jisung made eye contact with Chenle behind Jaemin’s back, grinning when Chenle motioned writing on a scoreboard.

“Well, shit,” Jeno muttered, getting up from behind the computer to join them on the same side of the bench. “We truly can’t catch a break, can we?”

“It’s the Murphy’s law in science,” Donghyuck said, though his voice sounded subdued. “Anything wrong that can happen, will happen.”

“There’s even more zombie attacks this week,” Renjun’s words came like bullets, hard and precise like a commander. Jisung straightened up involuntarily. From the corner of his eye he could see Chenle doing the same. “I expanded my search area across the whole country and did a statistical test for the daily count of zombie attacks. It’s definitely rising.”

Chenle made a face. Jisung mirrored it. He did a statistical test for what?

Donghyuck was looking at him, expression twisted. “I hope you haven’t been getting that data from going out everyday,” Donghyuck said, displeased.

“I thought we agreed to reduce unnecessary risks,” Jaemin added, a frown on his face as he put the plastic tube into an ice box.

Jisung stared between the three of them in bafflement, none of them seem the slightest bit surprised about doing a statistical test for a daily occurrence. Adults really work differently from teenagers, Jisung thought to himself confusedly. Jisung would encounter one extra attack and immediately report to Jaemin as one inconvenience too many.

“It’ll be too much to hope that Renjun made a calculation error, right?” Jeno asked, taking off his glasses and cleaning them.

Donghyuck shook his head. “I’ve been keeping up with the news – ” Twitter and social media, Jisung corrected, “ – and it’s happening all over. Increasing zombie attacks.”

“That’s not the only issue,” Renjun continued, arms crossed. Even as the smallest among them, his resting state carries almost as much force as Jaemin at his sourest mood. “Unfortunately but unsurprisingly, the spontaneous turning isn’t an outlier. There’s a couple more cases this week, people are turning even without contact with zombies for weeks.”

“Oh,” Chenle said faintly, “That doesn’t sound good.”

Jisung agreed silently. The only thing worse than getting bitten and turning into a zombie is turning into a zombie without warning like a slap of bad luck.

“Maybe we can increase the distribution of drugs?” Jeno suggested, looking troubled. “We could send out a nationwide notice, get everyone to take the drugs regardless of whether they’re infected or not. That would at least buy us some time, stop the spread of the virus while we figure it out.”

“Been there, done that,” Renjun’s face was as grim as it has ever been. “That isn’t the only thing I heard. Medicating with the drugs can’t stop the turning anymore.”

Silence descended on them.

“Well, fuck,” Donghyuck finally said, eloquently putting their thoughts into words, “We’re all going to die.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So it seems like some of you saw that little warning tag up there andddddd I haven't decided on it yet but I left it there just in case. I mean, it's a world of zombies after all. 
> 
> Anyways! Thank you for all the sweet comments you left and I hope that this will make for an exciting read again.


	3. 2

18:13:35

A heavy silence wrapped the room.

Jeno had a hand over his eyes, his glasses carelessly tossed on the table. Donghyuck had stolen Jaemin’s empty cup of coffee and was fiddling with it idly, his chair pushed back so far the plastic threatened to snap.

“Let’s try to work through it bit by bit,” Renjun said briskly, taking the lead when it looked like no one was going to say anything.

“What’s there to work through?” Donghyuck said lazily, spinning the cup in his hands.

“Plenty!” Renjun snapped, “People are spontaneously turning and the drugs are not working, we have to figure out the mechanics behind it to come up with a treatment plan and outbreak management.”

“Easier said than done,” Donghyuck said flippantly, but his usual brand of careless good humour fell flat.

Renjun took a deep breath, obviously trying to stay calm in the face of Donghyuck’s indifference, “I know it looks like a lot, but once we come up with a plan we can get around to getting it under control.”

“That’s the thing, Injunnie,” Donghyuck breathed out, closing his eyes and leaning his head back. “It is _a lot_.” Donghyuck held up a finger, somehow sensing Renjun’s retort without opening his eyes, “No, you’re not going to figure out how to deal with the virus, _we_ ,” he gestured between himself, Jeno and Jaemin, “are.”

Renjun’s face cycled between shock, anger and understanding before settling into apology. Jisung was at least 8 years younger and therefore 8 steps slower. He was still stuck at the first stage of emotion. Donghyuck never spoke to anyone like that, much less Renjun.

“Renjun’s right,” Jaemin said, smoothly intervening. “Either we figure this out or we die.” He got up abruptly, walking over to the mess of chairs stacked haphazardly in a corner and pulling out a movable whiteboard that Jisung never noticed was there. He dragged it over to them, fumbling inside his jacket pocket for a marker. Jeno silently handed him one.

Jaemin made quick notes on the board. Jeno squinted at the board for a moment before giving up and fumbling for his glasses on the table. “Let’s go over what we know. We’ll designate the original virus Strain 1, or S1.” Whatever Jaemin was feeling or thinking was wiped clean away. He had taken on a voice of authority akin to what Jisung imagined lecturers to have. Then again it was a very Jaemin thing. He liked bossing people around. “S1 was transmitted through salivary contact, whether through a bite or sharing food,” Jaemin began, “The entire zombification process from infection to turning is approximately a week depending on the viral load. Infected hosts are asymptomatic at the beginning before starting to display symptoms of high fever and involuntary muscle spasms towards the end. Renjun?” Jaemin prompted.

Renjun straightened up. “Symptoms are the same. But the zombification process is hard to estimate without knowing the source of infection.”

Jaemin nodded slowly, “That’s fair. What about the zombies?”

“The new ones seem to be the same as far as I’ve heard.”

“It’s possible that this is simply a mutated form of S1, then,” Jeno said thoughtfully.

Chenle raised a hand as though he was in class, “Could this be a new zombie virus that was engineered by someone else?”

“Oh my god, let’s not go into that yet, I think I’ll explode if there really is another bastard like that out there,” Donghyuck spat. Jisung could relate, once was enough.

“Let’s go with the first hypothesis for now,” Jaemin decided. “The new virus – let’s call it S2 – is a possible variation of S1 but it is spreading by an unknown route and is likely drug resistant.” Jaemin stopped short, eyebrows furrowing as he stared at the board with the notes scribbled over.

“If it’s only a drug-resistant form of S1, we can just build up on the data we have to figure out a new drug.” Jeno rested his head in his hand, his glasses going lopsided. “ _If._ ”

“That’s a pretty big ‘if’,” Renjun commented. “ _If_ that isn’t the case, and S2 is a completely new virus, we would have to start from scratch.”

“Great, let’s go with what Jaemin said,” Donghyuck clapped his hands together, choosing to be wilfully optimistic. Jaemin was still standing at the board motionlessly, eyes glazed over.

“Jaemin?” Jeno was the first to notice his inanimation.

Jaemin’s eyes slid back into focus. “This virus, where is it being reported at?”

“Sporadically across the country,” Renjun said. He glanced at Donghyuck, “Could you help to narrow down the specific areas?”

“Will do,” Donghyuck was on his phone already.

“It’ll be hard to obtain samples of S2 if it’s a sporadic occurrence,” Jaemin murmured to himself, deep in thought.

Donghyuck hummed, “I can try asking for a collaboration. There aren’t a lot of functioning labs, but if other people have already obtained samples of S2 and started researching we could join them.” He looked around the lab pointedly, “God knows we could afford to have more sophisticated equipment than a university lab if we don’t want to continue working at the speed of a dial-up connection.” 

18:13:35

“Do we even need to do this anymore?” Jisung wondered aloud when he and Chenle left to take their samples out of the incubator. The others were still in the lounge, discussing plans and throwing around different hypotheses that left Jisung feeling lost and a little useless.

“Hm?” Chenle squinted at the tiny writing on the label. “Of course we do, Jaemin would be mad if we let his samples go to waste.”

“Yeah but,” Jisung gestured at the slides. “There might be a new virus –”

“Unimaginatively named S1 and S2.”

“Tell me about it, Jaemin has all the creativity of a rock, I swear to god.”

“You’re not any better, Park Jisung. You named your Meowth pokemon Kat.”

“So I don’t see why we need to bother with these anymore,” Jisung finished, ignoring the last bit.

“Why wouldn’t we?” Chenle carefully picked up the slides with a pair of forceps, washing them in a shallow bowl of PBS.

Jisung stared at him. “Because all this data is for S1?” he said slowly. “But now S2 has emerged?”

“Yes, but that doesn’t mean that everything we learnt so far is useless,” Chenle said calmly, laying the slides down face down. “I wouldn’t say that the situation now is ideal, but it really isn’t as bad as the three of them seem to think it is.”

Jisung would love to argue the contrary, but Chenle seemed so sure of himself that Jisung knew it was only going to be a lost cause. “Donghyuck certainly seem to think it is,” he said instead. “I’ve never heard him speak to Renjun like that.”

“He’s overwhelmed,” Chenle said simply. “All of them are. They’ve been breaking their backs day and night for three years and now they’re potentially back to square one with no clue and no cure, except that now everyone is looking to them for an answer.”

When Jisung still looked unconvinced, Chenle went on. “Jeno is in bioinformatics, Donghyuck is a pharmaceutical major and Jaemin is an immunologist. Renjun may be a trained nurse and soldier but all he has is field experience while we’re – ”

“The resident idiots.”

“ – more useful as a pair of hands than a pair of heads,” Chenle said with a faint smile, “Forget representing a lab, _they_ are the lab. Can you imagine the amount of pressure on them now?”

Oh. Jisung hadn’t thought of it until now.

Chenle caught sight of his expression and scoffed, reading through him easily. “You’re still a child in many ways, Jisung,” he said, not unkindly. He looked like he was about to say more but seemed to think better of it.

“What is it?” Jisung pressed.

Chenle shook his head, adding the antibodies for the final round of incubation. “Could you go get the mounting media?”

“What were you about to say?” Jisung poked at his waist, watching him jump.

“Mounting media, Jisung.”

“What is it what is it what is it?” Jisung chanted, at his most annoying.

Chenle lifted his pipette threateningly. “I will _stab_ you with a P10 pipette, don’t try me.”

Jisung left, not at all inclined to test the possibility. God, he really hates walking to the cold room because it’s so damn far. It sucks being at the bottom of the food chain.

19:05:01

“Bring me out with you today,” Jaemin announced, barely waiting for Renjun to finish saying ‘come in’ before entering his room.

Renjun was sitting up in bed, his slight figure almost childlike in his baggy white T-shirt with the sheets pooled around him. There was nothing remotely innocent about the glare he was levelling at Jaemin. “I’d say good morning, but that would be a lie,” Renjun said, his light, lilting voice throaty with sleep.

“Since when are mornings good for you?” Jaemin sat at the edge of the office table, careful to keep his feet away from the edge of the mattress shoved between the table and the wall.

“When I have time to prepare myself for the inevitability of meeting humans,” Renjun rubbed his eyes with a fist. It was a subtle way of telling him to fuck off and Jaemin heard the message loud and clear.

“You and I both,” Jaemin said shamelessly, not budging an inch.

“Don’t you have experiments to do or something?” Renjun finally got up with a stretch, folding the blankets and straightening the sheets.

“I finished them,” Jaemin answered. “I cleared my morning so that I could go with you.”

Renjun paused from where he was stacking the blankets on his pillow. His eyes roved over Jaemin’s limp hair, the imprints of the latex gloves on his hands and his bloodshot eyes. Jaemin stared back evenly.

“I took a quick nap and drank some coffee,” Jaemin said. “I’ll be fine. I won’t be a bother.”

“That wasn’t what I was going to say,” Renjun muttered. He went over to the bookrack and tiptoed, reaching to the highest shelf and pulling down a tin box. He opened the box and tossed a chocolate bar to Jaemin, who caught it easily.

“Why do you keep it so high out of your reach?” Jaemin wrinkled his nose. It wasn’t that high, to be fair. Not for him at least.

“There are too many rats in the lab,” Renjun said meaningfully.

Ah. Jaemin understood immediately. “Donghyuck.”

“Jisung.” Renjun said at the same time.

Jaemin gave him a scandalized look, “He’s a growing boy!” he said, affronted.

“He stopped growing a long time ago, Jaemin,” Renjun grabbed his polka-dotted bag of toiletries. “God knows he should stop growing before he grows through the ceiling. I’ll see you at the lobby in thirty.”

19:05:32

“Isn’t Chenle coming too?” Jaemin frowned, zipping up his jacket.

“Nope,” Renjun popped the ‘p’. “He threatened to report me to the Ministry of Manpower for making him wake up at ‘the ass crack of dawn’ every day,” Renjun made quotation marks with his fingers, “So I decided to let him sleep in today.” He glanced at Jaemin, “If anything, Jisung should be the one reporting you.”

“Jisung enjoys the work,” Jaemin sniffed.

“Sure he does,” Renjun snorted, “But why do _you_ want to follow me around today? Don’t you have a million things to do or something?” Renjun asked, patting himself down and checking his weapons as they left the warmth of the building into the brisk, cold air. The sun wasn’t out yet, making the world all the colder because of it.

Jaemin hunched his shoulders up against the breeze. His head was pounding, his stomach was roiling from the huge cup of coffee he drank on an empty stomach and he was cold as fuck. In short, he was hungry and nauseous and generally too miserable to summon the energy to be annoyed. “There’s a million questions that I want to ask the idiots,” he said. Well, okay, maybe he still had a bit of energy left.

“You could have asked me to do it,” Renjun lowered his voice when they caught sight of an Infected at a distance. He cocked his head towards the Infected questioningly.

Jaemin shook his head. He can’t be bothered today.

Renjun nodded and led them away, through a path that would let them avoid the Infected. “Too much work. You wouldn’t know what to ask, anyway.”

Renjun stopped in his tracks and turned to look at Jaemin with a frown on his face. “What’s with you guys?” he asked. He almost sounded hurt. “First Donghyuck and now you.”

Jaemin bit his lip, shame flooding him. “I’m sorry.” It tasted stale in his mouth with how often he was saying it these days, how often he did something that necessitated an apology. He rubbed his face, almost kicking an empty can because of the motion. Renjun jerked him aside to avoid it. “I just meant – I have a few ideas and I wanted to come on site to have a look at the situation for myself. It would be too much to trouble you with all that.” Jaemin cut off his flow of words. “I shouldn’t have worded it like that. I’m sorry, Renjun.”

Renjun looked at him consideringly. “The collection centre isn’t far from here. We can get a bit of breakfast there.”

It wasn’t entirely forgiveness, but Jaemin would take it at face value. The collection centre was at the Suwon Underground Shopping Mall. Jaemin still remembered how the whole place was overrun with zombies when they first arrived. Despite the government’s clean up, the number of Infected far exceeded the living and the ones left behind are often too desperate and distrustful to work with.

It took the combined efforts of Renjun, Jisung, Chenle and other volunteers the better part of two years to clear out a space and establish a centralised supply system for the food and drugs for the city of Suwon. With the collapse of industries and transport lines becoming so dangerous, mindless looting would merely push them towards extinction.

Renjun pushed aside the tarp, revealing the metal shutters of exit 4 of the shopping mall. He turned the lock and motioned to Jaemin to come close. Jaemin did so, confused but obedient. He understood in the next moment when Renjun lifted the shutters suddenly, making a thunderous, grating noise. Instinctively, he dove in through the tiny opening after Renjun, letting the shutters slam back shut quickly as the sound of growling exploded from outside. Renjun tugged him along, away from the entrance. “Isn’t there a less conspicuous way to enter this place?”

“The noise is a deterrent,” Renjun explained, moving through the maze of corridors without faltering. “We prop open the shutters at different entrances every week, not big, just a gap big enough for small boxes to pass through and the suppliers leave them there at scheduled timings. Runners come by to get their stuff and well,” Renjun turned around a corner, “the noise draws enough Infected that people are less inclined to come by more often than they need.”

“That’s a pretty neat system,” Jaemin commented, nodding to a man pushing aside a tarp carefully before quickly pulling a box through a space.

“It’s genius, isn’t it?” Renjun smiled a rare smile. “Jisung and Chenle came up with it, the two brats.” Despite his words, his voice was fond.

Jaemin raised an eyebrow. He didn’t know about that. “How do the runners come in?”

“It wouldn’t do to have the shutters go up and down all day,” Renjun said, opening a box of supplies and starting to put them away. Jaemin silently followed suit. “The runners gather nearby at an appointed time and we open the shutters for them to make the dash in. They stay here, usually until night when it’s easier to leave under the cover of darkness.”

Jaemin spun around, “Night? You’re only going to leave at night?”

“That’s what I said,” Renjun didn’t look up from where he was logging the supplies in a laptop.

Jaemin stared at him in chagrin, “I have experiments!”

“Tell Jisung to do them for you,” Renjun said, still not looking away from his screen.

“Jisung wouldn’t know how.”

“He’s been your personal research assistant for two years and studying the Cellular and Molecular Immunology textbook like his life depends on it,” Renjun shut him down quickly. “He’ll be able to do that much.” 

Jaemin closed his eyes in vexation. He resisted for a moment more before giving up, pulling out his phone and typing a long message to Jisung, praying that it would be enough. If it wasn’t…well, Jaemin can just incinerate the entire week’s work. 

The reply came almost instantaneously. Jaemin squinted at the message. “Jisung’s asking for…chocolate _ddeok_?” he said, baffled. “I have no idea what that is – ” Another message came in. “He said to ask you because you’ll know what he’s talking about.”

Renjun was reaching for a box on a shelf. Jaemin went over and took the box down. “Thanks,” Renjun opened the box, pulling out a few packets of something that resembled chocopie and tossing it into his rucksack.

Jaemin watched him with narrowed eyes. “So that’s where he has been getting his snacks from.”

Renjun smirked.

Their lab really is infested with rats.

19:17:15

Jaemin’s head hurt.

He had spent the whole day alternating between interrogating the runners and cracking his own head open. It was exactly as Renjun had said, so-and-so heard someone who turned without warning and taking the drugs didn’t stop the entire group from turning. No one was able to give a clear direction as to who and where these cases happened.

Perhaps the most exasperating thing was hearing how people were medicating themselves. They were either taking too much or too little, and more often than not they had no idea if they were cleared of the virus before stopping their medication.

“How long do you medicate yourself for? A week at least?” Jaemin had demanded.

“Huh? No, of course not,” the guy replied. “We know that the supply isn’t stable, we’ve been taking care to stop it when the fever goes away.” He smiled at Jaemin reassuringly, oblivious to Jaemin’s mounting frustration.

Jaemin opened his mouth to deliver a scathing rebuke. A muffled swear came out instead when Renjun pinched his side hard. 

His irritation only rose with every person he spoke to.

“Your friend,” Jaemin asked, staring down the runner, “You said he turned without warning.”

“Yes?” the guy – boy, really – looked terrified of Jaemin.

“Did his clan take the drugs daily?” Jaemin demanded. “Before or after he turned? Where are they?”

“I don’t know!” the boy cowered from Jaemin. “I think they gave him the drug after he started showing the spasms but he still turned, and then they killed him, and within the next few days all of them in that house had the spasms too.”

“Where is this at? Do you know where they live? Do they still have the corpse of the first one? Are they all zombies now?” Jaemin fired question after question without pausing.

“I don’t know!” the boy wailed again. He looked like he was ready to run out the centre to escape Jaemin. “He’s in Jeonju, I’ve never met him personally, we met through Battleground!”

“Can you stop terrifying the kids?” Renjun said in exasperation after pulling him aside. “Not everyone is a Jisung.”

Jaemin fumbled around for his can of coffee, scowling when he realised it was empty. “This is stupid, they’re all so stupid,” he raged. “We don’t need the zombies because they’ll just end up killing themselves.” He paused for a breath, gathering his anger. “Fucking Battleground, that damn game! Kids these days, they’ll spend the entire day on their phones, gaming with each other, and they wouldn’t even know each other’s names.” When Renjun didn’t reply, Jaemin glanced at him in puzzlement.

Renjun’s cheeks were puffed, biting down hard on his lips.

“What?” Jaemin asked grumpily.

Renjun burst into laughter suddenly. “Clan,” Renjun guffawed. “Do you think you’re in League of Legends?”

Jaemin flushed. He lifted the can to his lips, pretending to drink to avoid Renjun’s mocking gaze. “This was an utterly useless day. I somehow managed to find out everything and nothing at all.” He accidentally sipped too hard, making an empty sucking noise. Renjun raised an eyebrow knowingly. Jaemin’s lips thinned into a line. Now he understands what Donghyuck meant when he was bitching about Renjun’s infamous eyebrow.

Jaemin flung the can into the bin a bit too hard.

“Please tell me that you take the drug daily,” Jaemin said in one breath to the next runner.

“No way,” the guy scoffed, “Renjun told us to take it everyday but the hell we’re doing that. No offence,” he apologised to Renjun, “It’s much too precious for us to be eating it when we weren’t even bitten.”

Jaemin gave up.

19:19:38

“Get up,” Renjun’s voice came from above him. “It’s almost time to leave.”

Jaemin didn’t move. Renjun ripped off the towel he had laid over his eyes. The glare of the fluorescent light stabbed through his closed eyelids. “Na Jaemin, did you not hear me?”

“I did,” Jaemin replied, eyes still closed. “And I’m choosing not to listen.”

Renjun heaved a massive sigh. “And why is that?” he asked, sounding like he was dealing with a child.

“It’s what everyone does to me,” he said spitefully. “So now it’s my turn to do it.”

“Dear fucking lord – ” Jaemin’s eyes snapped open and he swung out of the chair, missing Renjun’s fist by inches. He walked towards the entrance where the runners were crouched and waiting. “Well?” he called back to Renjun, “Aren’t you coming?”

Renjun came over to him slowly, eyes promising murder. Jaemin raised an eyebrow tauntingly. He may have the entire lab terrified of him but Jaemin didn’t fear death. At this point, he welcomes it. “You’re such a child, god,” muttered Renjun.

Jaemin pretended not to hear it.

“Okay,” Renjun breathed out. Everyone’s gazes darted to him, nervous, expectant and determined. “Line up, grab a hold of the shutters.”

Jaemin gripped the bottom of the shutters. His hands were sweaty and he noted with mild surprise the pounding of his heart. It’s been a while since he had been out of the lab and in the field like this. He had really been getting comfortable for way too long.

“Check the cameras,” Renjun ordered.

There was a brief shuffle, “Clear.”

“On the count of three,” Renjun’s voice was steely.

One.

Two.

Three.

19:19:40

The shutters shrieked into the night. Answering screams echoed back. Jaemin’s breath caught in his throat, heart clenching painfully. Even after three years, he still can’t suppress the instinctive flinch of fear at the sound of the Infected.

There was no time to waste dwelling on that, no time to feel the fear. His body was already moving on autopilot, clambering from under the shutters and starting to run. A hand seized his wrist and he barely held himself from flinging it off before he realised that it was Renjun.

Renjun dragged him through the backstreets. It was a moonless night, the darkness overwhelming and disorienting. Jaemin was basically running blind, nothing to guide him save for Renjun’s warm, sure grip on his wrist.

Jaemin’s heart was in his throat, his steps loud and clumsy unlike the quiet whisper of Renjun’s footsteps, just barely skimming along the ground. “Can you be quiet?” hissed Renjun.

“I’m trying!” Jaemin hissed back.

Renjun suddenly stopped. Jaemin was almost stupid enough to open his mouth and ask why before realising. Renjun’s grip tightened on his wrist as they heard the slow, dragging footsteps of an Infected.

They drew into the shadows silently. Jaemin hardly dared to breathe, struggling to even his laboured breathing. This is what he gets for skimping on his workout. Poor fitness might actually turn out to be the death of him.

The pungent smell of rotting flesh drew closer. Jaemin tugged his wrist out of Renjun’s grip. He strained his ears, hearing nothing but the lethargic drag of the Infected. Just one then. His hand slipped into his pocket, wrapping around the handle of his knife.

His eyes had adjusted to the darkness enough for him to see the vague outline of the approaching Infected. He tensed, and before Renjun could act as his impulse control, he leapt forward, grabbing at the shoulder and stabbing in the approximate location of its eyes.

He missed. Of course. It was too fucking dark. And Jaemin was too fucking stupid.

The Infected grabbed him, a deep, rattling growing starting in its throat, its mouth snapping at him. Jaemin strained, barely keeping its teeth away from his face. It was another marker of insanity that Jaemin was entirely preoccupied with how it was too noisy, rather than focusing on the immediate problem two inches from his skin. “Close your eyes!” Renjun snarled.

Jaemin obeyed, twisting his face away and feeling cool, sticky fluid splattering across his face. The growling cut off into a gurgle. Jaemin opened his eyes, seeing Renjun dispatching the Infected with a knife to the eye. “Wait!” he resisted when Renjun tried to pull him along.

“What the hell are you doing?” Renjun said in a furious whisper.

Jaemin dug his knife along the jaw of the dead zombie, clumsily sawing into the flesh and prying out the parotid gland with the edge of his knife. “Quick, give me a bag.”

“You’re insane, Na Jaemin,” Renjun sounded livid. “And why would I have an organ collection bag?” Jaemin snatched Renjun’s rucksack, ignoring his protests and tipping the organ in. He heaved the Infected over, flipping the knife and driving the handle to the back of the skull. It gave way easily. Careful to avoid touching the brain, he sliced a section of brain out and threw it into the rucksack messily. “Let’s go.”

They pelted down the alleyway, freezing in place every so often to let an Infected pass. Jaemin’s heart was pounding and the cold air felt like knives in his chest with every inhale. He was absurdly thankful when he finally saw the outline of the RIPST building materialise from the darkness.

Donghyuck was waiting for them at the lift lobby when they emerged from the back entrance and up the stairs. “What took you so long?” he demanded. Upon catching sight of the blood splattered over Jaemin and Renjun, his face blanched. “Were you attacked?”

“More like Jaemin decided that it was a nice time to go zombie hunting,” Renjun spat. Having had the entire run to build up his rage, Renjun sounded choked up with fury. Jaemin eyed the knife in his hand with trepidation.

“If I may…” Jaemin snatched the bag from Renjun’s hand. “I have to flash freeze them like _now_ , so if you’ll take a queue number I’ll be out soon and you two can take turns to stab me.”

19:20:00

Jisung made a face, gingerly lifting a chocolate _ddeok_ out of the damp rucksack with a gloved hand. Chenle’s face was twisted with disgust. “I think we can just incinerate the whole thing.”

Jisung whimpered, watching Chenle mercilessly dump the whole thing into a biohazard bag. Goodbye, snacks he never got to eat. “I swear Jaemin did this on purpose.”

“With Jaemin, you never know.”

22:17:56

The door to the lounge slammed open with a bang.

Jisung jumped guiltily, the hot rameon soup splashing over the side of the bowl and scalding his hand.

“Hide it, hide it, hide it,” Chenle muttered, looking like he was very much considering just shoving the entire pot of instant noodles under the table.

Jaemin’s footsteps sped towards them and stopped short. They froze, neither of them daring to look up. There was a huge sigh. “Stop _eating_ that junk,” lectured Jaemin. “All that sodium is bad for your health. Weren’t you listening to a single word I said?”

“Jeno was too tired to cook,” Chenle piped up, “We offered to help but you know,” he shrugged, making an apologetic face, “we’re not very good at cooking.” He sent Jisung a warning glance briefly.

Jisung was biting his lip to suppress his laughter at Chenle’s outrageous lie, thankful that his back was to Jaemin. If you considered the both of them wearing him down with their cajoling and volunteering to do the cooking when Jeno, in his last act of resistance, admitted that he was expressly forbidden by Jaemin to go over their sodium budget, then yes. That was exactly what happened. When he was sure that he had gotten his expression under control, Jisung turned around just in time to catch Jaemin’s expression softening.

“Where are the others?” Jaemin asked, and that was when Jisung knew that they managed to get away. For now.

“They’ll be here soon,” Jisung answered, ladling the noodles out. “Are you joining us for dinner?”

Jaemin hummed in assent, settling into a chair. Despite the tired lines of his face, his eyes were bright and he looked almost excited. “You look…” happy? Definitely not. Excited? More like manic. “Tired,” Jisung finished.

“I always am,” Jaemin replied, suppressing a yawn. The sound of voices echoed down the corridor then, and Jaemin perked up.

“Oh, it’s you,” Renjun was the first to enter, sounding decidedly unenthusiastic. “I haven’t had my chance to stab you yet, so if you could please come over.”

“Save the stabbing for after dinner,” dismissed Jaemin quickly. “Where are your manners? Anyways,” he began when they started to settle themselves around the table. “I just got the results from the plaque assay – ”

“Save the work talk for after dinner,” Donghyuck interrupted him with a self-satisfied smirk, “Where are your manners?”

Jaemin rolled his eyes but conceded, to Jisung’s surprise. He definitely does look better today, Jisung noted. He was still haggard and much too thin, his features so pronounced that they looked like they were painted on his skull, but the suppressed tension that he had been carrying around had loosened somewhat. He didn’t look as prone to snapping anymore.

“Swap?” Jisung looked beside him at Chenle, who was holding up his egg.

Jisung grinned, dropping his yolk into Chenle’s bowl for the egg white.

“So,” Renjun drawled after they cleared the tables. “I hope you risking our lives the other day was worth it.”

“Definitely,” Jaemin said without hesitation. He got up from where Jeno had been massaging his shoulders and practically bounded over to the whiteboard they used the other day. “Thanks to the Infected that Renjun so kindly helped me to obtain, I was able to test and confirm that it contained the S1 virus and it is still susceptible to our drug.”

“This means,” Jaemin went on, without pausing, “that there are two circulating viruses, not one anymore. Since S2 seems to behave similarly to S1 and it’s only popping up sporadically, and the fact that people are not properly medicating themselves, I think it’s likely that what we’re looking at is the emergence of a drug resistant virus.”

“So our first hypothesis was correct,” Donghyuck leaned back into his chair, eyes narrowed in concentration.

Jaemin nodded. “I was worried that our second hypothesis – unlikely as it seems to me - was true, and that there really is some asshole out there creating a new virus. In that case, things would most certainly be a lot worse because in that scenario it would be a rerun of three years ago.”

“I hate to be the one to say this, Jaem, but we can’t exclude that possibility entirely,” Jeno said reluctantly.

“Of course,” Jaemin agreed. “We’ll have to obtain samples of S2 and test it out before we conclude that it’s just a drug-resistant strain. But for now, the first theory seems more likely.”

There was an audible sigh of relief. Jaemin himself looked much too pleased at the prospect of a drug-resistant virus. “Our database from the last three years isn’t completely useless, then,” he said happily, clearing up Jisung’s unspoken confusion.

“As for why people are spontaneously turning…the only thing I can think of is that people are simply being careless with their hygiene,” Jaemin said thoughtfully. “Assuming that people aim for the brain, this means that weapons would be full of virus and contaminated surfaces can transfer the virus onto hands, and subsequently, into mouths.”

Donghyuck snorted, “That’s a distinct possibility. People can be ridiculously stupid,” he scorned. He and Jaemin exchanged a knowing look. “So how are we going to get samples of S2 to work with? I’m assuming that an S1 and S2 infected zombie are going to look exactly like each other.”

Jaemin sat down, rubbing his temples. “That’s the problem. Every zombie looks the same. And people who were infected with S2 likely turned everyone in their homes with S2 as well, so we can’t depend on them to point us in the right direction. I can’t think of anything besides going to an area with the most reports of S2 and randomly hunting zombies,” he said miserably. “That’s an idiotic idea, even to me. Did your contacts get back to you?”

Donghyuck shook his head. Renjun suddenly smiled. “The poor kid you were terrorizing the other day helped me ask around and I have some news for you.”

Jaemin cocked his head.

“The good news is, I think I might know where index zero is.”

“Great,” Jaemin said briskly, “We can set out tomorrow – ”

“The bad news is,” Renjun interrupted loudly, “It’s in Busan.”

There was a beat of awkward silence as everyone suddenly avoided looking at each other.

“Well, if you’re going to go with a team you can count me out because I sure as hell am not cycling there,” said Chenle, breaking the stalemate.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Like in HOBI, there's a big scientific theory backing up this one. The clues to practically the entire plot are scattered through this one and in HOBI and trust me when I say that you can figure out the whole thing just from them. Aaaaannnddddd if you get it right you'll also see how it could potentially lead to a MCD :]


	4. 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Double update!

22:18:53

“Let’s pick straws,” suggested Donghyuck.

“We are _not_ picking straws for this,” Renjun shut him down immediately. ”Use your brain, you dumbass. You call yourself a scientist?”

“I volunteer Jisung as tribute!” called out Chenle gleefully. Jisung shoved him off his chair.

“The important question is, exactly how are we getting there?” asked Jisung. If it’s another cycling expedition, he’s breaking his knee. He knows a few stairwells he can throw himself down.

“Is there anyone we can get in touch with there?” wondered Jeno. “We should have a safe house, at least.”

“I think we can go next week,” Jaemin said, flipping through his scheduler and ignoring every question. He looked up expectantly, “So, who wants to go?”

Jisung chose to be selectively deaf.

“Well, come on,” Jaemin said impatiently, when it seemed like everyone was still avoiding the question. “I think three is a good number. If one person dies at least the other two will have each other. Who wants to come?”

“I can’t go, I need to do the rounds and the supply centre needs me,” Renjun said promptly. 

“I can’t go, I’m doing the rounds with Renjun,” added Chenle. “I need to protect him from the monsters.” Renjun rolled his eyes.

“I can’t go, I need to protect Chenle from Renjun?” tried Donghyuck. Jaemin gave him a flat look.

“It’s not some kind of cycle to hell, god,” Jaemin said, exasperated. Jisung swallowed the words on the tip of his tongue, squashing the momentary insanity where he was actually considering going. In a car. Not a bicycle. “Jeno and I did it before, didn’t we?”

Jeno flinched away from Jaemin’s demanding gaze, “That was three years ago and the only real worry we had was you throwing a fit about not finding the booths to stamp our bicycle passbooks, Jaem. But I can come with you,” Jeno volunteered, bless him.

Jaemin considered it briefly before shaking his head. “No, we’re the only two who know the route. We need to have a backup here in case you three have to join us.” Jisung can practically see the moment the lightbulb went off in Jaemin’s head. His manic gaze landed on Jisung and Donghyuck.

“Fuck,” Donghyuck muttered under his breath. Jisung suppressed a sob.

24:21:35

The plan (Na, 2023) shall commence according to the following;

  1. Departure from base camp at 0500 hours
  2. Make their way out of Suwon, skirting the cities of Yongin and Icheon
  3. Join up to the Namhangang route, which will make up the first of the three segments of their journey along the 4 Rivers Cycling Path that bisected the country and ended in Busan



According to the little printout Jaemin handed them, they were looking at approximately 600km of cycling, which equates to about 10 days in the saddle if they rode hard enough.

Just hearing Jaemin say that aloud made Jisung want to die.

In the past two days, Jisung found himself cycling between the various stages of grief. He managed to get to the bargaining stage before Jaemin, losing his patience rapidly, snapped that he would just go by himself if everyone was going to be so difficult.

It was an infuriatingly effective strategy. Jisung hated him a little for using it on him.

“Do you have everything?” repeated Chenle for what felt like the hundredth time. He was leaning on the door jamb of Jisung’s room, gnawing at his lip as he watched Jisung. “I’m heading out with Renjun tomorrow, is there something you need me to get for you?”

Jisung looked up from where he was doing his nightly stretching on the floor of his room to squint at Chenle. It was unlike him to be so persistent. “I’m fine,” he wrinkled his nose. “We shouldn’t bring too much with us anyway, it would slow us down.” He paused to think it over, “In my case it might actually just kill me.”

“ _Don’t_ say things like that,” Chenle said, voice so high it was bordering on shrill.

Jisung startled at the sharpness of his voice. “I was joking,” he said carefully, not really sure how to handle this version of Chenle. “You know we’ll be fine, right?”

“No, no you don’t,” Chenle bit out vehemently. “I – what if you die?”

Jisung felt his heart sink. It was something that he didn’t allow himself to think about directly. “Then we die,” he said, his voice sounding oddly calm to himself. “Either we make it, or we die.”

Despite hearing the words spoken aloud, Jisung didn’t feel as terrified as he ought to be at the prospect of it. He simply felt blank. It was the strangest feeling. It was almost as though some part of him had long accepted it, or given up.

Chenle looked utterly miserable. “Think about it another way,” Jisung tried, “We’ve been living on borrowed time since the apocalypse started. If we hadn’t met Jaemin and Jeno, we would have been dead ten times over. Hell, if it weren’t for Jaemin, I wouldn’t have made it home that day just like my mom and brother. And if we never found out about Renjun’s drug, Renjun would have put a bullet between our eyes. We’re just extending our grace period again.”

And that really is all there is to it. The world has never been kind, but the world they’re in right now is ruthless. There simply isn’t room for anyone who can’t pull their weight and if Jisung wants a place in it, he better fight for it.

“I know that,” Chenle snapped, “I _know_ ,” he repeated forcefully, as though trying to remind himself of that.

“Weren’t you the one who didn’t want to go?” Jisung said, his lips quirking into a smile. Chenle looked so put out and upset and trying to look like he couldn’t care less at the same time, it was both endearing and exasperating.

“That’s because I thought that Jaemin might change his mind if enough people objected – ” Chenle threw up his hands in surrender. “What am I talking about, it’s Jaemin.”

They exchanged a look. With the single-minded way Jaemin ploughed through life, it wasn’t all that surprising that he managed to survive fairly well throughout the apocalypse. Na Jaemin survived through sheer willpower alone.

“Well,” Jisung shrugged, getting up from the floor and dusting off his sweatpants. “One of us has to go with him somehow. And I think it’ll help to have Donghyuck along, he’s a great sounding board for Jaemin.” Well, more like the opposition, but their combined determination to best each other somehow produced some of their most brilliant ideas.

Chenle groaned, coming over to throw himself over Jisung’s bed before he could. “I’m just pissed about all this, don’t mind me.”

“Why would you?” Jisung shoved Chenle aside to make space for himself, almost falling off the edge when Chenle shoved him back. “This is my bed!” he yelped in indignation.

“Oh, I don’t know,” Chenle sat up, beginning to tussle with Jisung in earnest with an ill-placed vengeance. “Maybe about the fact that you might die?”

Jisung gave up quickly, knowing a losing battle when he sees one. He caught Chenle round the waist, slamming him backwards onto the mattress. Jisung lay half-atop Chenle, pinning him down and digging his fingers into his sides. “Aww,” he gasped theatrically, voice muffled against Chenle’s stomach as he flailed wildly from Jisung’s assault, bucking to throw him off. “Are you perhaps, _worried_ about me?”

Chenle hit him on the shoulder. “You’re too young to die,” he said instead, bypassing the question entirely.

“You’re not that much older than me.” Jisung stopped tormenting him, opting to enjoy the comfort of a warm bed that he won’t be having for much longer.

“Still too young.” Chenle’s fingers hesitantly combed through Jisung’s hair. He tensed up imperceptibly at the contact, fighting to keep his breathing calm. His senses were suddenly hyperaware, Chenle’s baby powder scent, the softness of his stomach, the way his fingers felt running through his hair. Everything felt too real suddenly. All too precious, too ephemeral. “You’re much too young,” Chenle said again, “For all of this.” It was a voice of heartbreak and regret. 

Jisung didn’t answer. He didn’t know how to. It was too much to look back and see what was lost, futile to look forward and see what could have been. All there was to do is to look down and place one foot over another, again and again.

Survival is an endless sacrifice and innocence is always the first one to go.

It is what it is.

Either one or the other.

24:22:02

“Must you really go to Busan?” Jeno asked quietly. He had let himself in about half an hour ago, curling up on Jaemin’s bed like a cat and silently watching him work.

Jaemin swallowed, not looking up from where he was pencilling notes into the margin of his papers. No, he could say. I don’t have to. Let someone else do it. There’s someone out there who’s probably smarter and better than I ever will be, let them risk their life.

And if there isn’t?

And if those out there are just the same as Jaemin, thinking that someone else could do it?

Can Jaemin bring himself to hide, to stop trying to protect what’s left of his family?

“You know I have to, Jeno,” he said after a pause. It sounded more resigned than he meant it to be. “We’ll have to get the samples somehow.”

Jeno eyed him steadily. Jaemin refused to meet his eyes, still determinedly writing his notes. “Do you want me to come with?”

 _Yes_ , Jaemin shrieked hysterically inside his mind. I don’t want to go to fucking Busan, I don’t want to go without you because what if it’s the last time I see you?

“No,” he replied curtly.

“Are you sure you can make it there?” Jeno gave him a critical once-over. “It’s not an easy journey.”

No, he whimpered internally. “Yes,” Jaemin lied through his teeth.

Lies, lies, lies. Jaemin already struggled to run for fifteen minutes alongside pocket-sized Renjun, what kind of confidence does he have to think that he can manage a journey as though he was twenty-one again?

If Jeno knew he was lying, he didn’t say anything. He picked at the loose threads of Jaemin’s blanket. “It’s a risky journey,” Jeno said, “You could die on the way there, or Donghyuck or Jisung – ” Jaemin’s pen skidded, making a black line, “ – and you might not even get what you’re looking for.”

Jaemin stared at the paper with burning eyes, though at this time the words on the page might as well be static and he has no idea what he was even writing anymore. Jeno was speaking so casually, tossing the things that were eating away at Jaemin out in the air as though they carried no weight. Jaemin’s heart felt like it would explode. His jaw worked as he tried to speak evenly. “We still have to try.”

“Sure,” Jeno’s voice was almost indifferent. “Let’s go with that. I’ll try to hold down the fort here. We can set up a schedule of some sorts, and if I stop contacting you after every three days or something you can just assume that I’m dead.”

Jaemin stood up suddenly, the chair making a loud scraping noise. “What is going on with you?” he demanded, louder than he intended. “Why are you saying this?” His heart thudded in his chest, fear and anxiety and stress in one tight ball within him.

Jeno looked back at him calmly. “I’m being practical about this, Jaemin.”

He is, but that’s besides the point. Jaemin is the one who deals with the ugly side of things, not Jeno. It’s one thing to deal with unpleasant possibilities, but when it leaves the inside of the mind, it ceases to be a thought and becomes tangible, terrifying reality. “You don’t have to tell me what I already do,” he gritted out. He fumbled for his anger, throwing up a smokescreen between himself and Jeno. 

Jeno shrugged, aggravatingly nonchalant. “Just a reminder,” his eyes bored into Jaemin’s. “In case you forget what’s at stake.”

Jaemin wavered. There’s something off about the way Jeno was speaking. It was almost like he was trying to bait him. But Jaemin was much too consumed with panic and fear from Jeno’s words to think clearly. “How can I possibly forget?” He cursed himself for the tremble in his voice.

“I don’t know,” Jeno said, crossing one leg over another. “You’ve always run ahead of everyone else while keeping your eyes on the prize, but things get lost or forgotten along the way, don’t they?”

That was a low blow. Jaemin’s jaw clenched so hard it felt like he would break a tooth. “Bringing up dead parents?” Jaemin finally managed to say. “I didn’t think that you had that in you, Lee Jeno.”

Jeno furrowed his eyebrows in confusion. “What are you – oh,” he stopped short. All of a sudden, the cool, impassive façade crumbled and regret took over. “Jaemin, that wasn’t what I was trying to say.”

“Please leave, I have some work to do,” Jaemin sat down, pulling his papers to him again.

“Jaemin,” Jeno pleaded.

Jaemin ignored him, putting all his focus into reading the words to block out everything. The words swam in front of him, it was like he was reading a foreign language with the amount of effort it took to understand one word after another. The papers were suddenly pulled from him, Jaemin’s head snapped up, furious, and to his utter shock and humiliation, a teardrop rolled down his cheek.

Jeno’s eyes widened. He scrambled, practically climbing onto the desk in his haste to get to Jaemin. It would have been amusing in any other situation but this one. “Jaemin, god, I’m so sorry,” Jeno sounded like he was on the verge of tears too, “Don’t cry, darling, hm?” he thumbed away the tear, pulling Jaemin into a hug. “I wasn’t trying to bring that up, I’m such an idiot, this is why I leave the talking to you. I’m sorry, ugh, I shouldn’t have worded it like that.”

Jaemin stayed stiff, fists clenched on his lap and struggling to keep himself together. “I’m scared for you, alright?” Jeno’s voice sounded right beside his ear. “All of us are terrified and this is the last thing in the world that we’d rather do. And then there’s you, who makes the hard decisions and goes through with the dirty work so coldly that I wonder if you recognise the gravity of what you’re doing, the weight of what’s at stake.”

“It’s because I do know that I’m doing it! But just because something is necessary doesn’t make it easy!” Jaemin could have screamed in frustration.

“Oh, Jaemin,” Jeno’s voice broke. “I know. I know. I just hate seeing you get so lost inside your own head and forgetting everything else, including yourself."

Jaemin sat still, Jeno’s arms were still wrapped around him from where he was awkwardly seated on the table. Jaemin’s nose was pressed into the soft material of his black hoodie, the familiar scent calming and steadying. “I don’t know what else to do,” Just like that, all the panic-ridden anger drained away. Jaemin’s voice sounded dead even to himself. “You know me, I’ve always been like this. I don’t know…how else to live. I forgot how it’s like to not live without thinking about the next day, the next step, the next problem, the next goal.”

“You’ve been killing yourself everyday for every day,” Jeno whispered. “Why won’t you see that you’re not in this alone?”

“Because there’s no one else – ” Jaemin began only to be cut off by Jeno.

“There’s Donghyuck and Renjun,” Jeno listed, “and Jisung and Chenle. Did you know that Donghyuck had asked me to teach him computational biology so that he could figure out drugs against this virus based on their chemical structure? Did you know that Renjun has been so busy coordinating the acquisition and transport of supplies and facilities that he doesn’t take a single day off? Did you know that,” Jeno laughed a little, “Chenle asked me to teach _him_ immunology so that he could answer Jisung’s questions? Jisung has been feeling frustrated about not being able to do more and he got it into his little head that the best solution is to teach himself to be a scientist. We’re all helping the way we can.”

Jaemin found himself smiling a little at that. It was ridiculous and stupid and so Jisung, but he couldn’t find it in himself to be particularly surprised. “They could have just asked me if they had questions,” he mumbled, focusing on the least important bit.

“You’re not the most welcoming face, in case you didn’t realise.”

Jaemin sighed. “It’s too much effort to smile,” he said wearily, “Or joke or laugh or anything. I’m so tired, Jeno. I’m so, so tired.” His gaze landed on the sheaf of papers scattered across his desk, some of them crumpled under Jeno, some half-hanging over the table and for a moment he felt like he would explode at the sight of them.

Jeno finally let go of him, his legs swung over the table as he looked down at Jaemin seriously. His gaze was firm but kind. “That’s why I keep telling you all this. Because I need you to know, to remember, that you’re not doing this alone. I want you to know that you’re not alone.” He reached forward suddenly, flicking him on his forehead. “Stop trying to save the world by yourself,” Jeno ordered, though the smile in his voice took away some of the effect. “You can’t do it alone, and no offence but none of us here need any saving.”

Jaemin closed his eyes and slumped forward to rest his forehead on Jeno’s lap, circling his arms around his waist. Jeno laid a hand between Jaemin’s shoulder blades, bearing Jaemin’s weight silently and simply letting him breathe.

30:04:00

Jisung’s fingers tapped on the wooden table rhythmically. A half-eaten bagel lay abandoned in front of him alongside a packet of milk. He had attempted to feed himself before giving up, the nausea chasing away any resemblance of an appetite.

In all honesty, it wasn’t an impossible journey. Jaemin might be a hard ass but he’s nothing if not practical, and he wouldn’t bother taking them on a trip that they could not accomplish. Their plan was to slip out the main city of Suwon while it was still dark and reach the unpopulated outskirts by the time the sun rose. The sunlight would help guide them along until they reached the marked trail of the bicycle path.

From there, the only real danger was their heart giving out on them mid-cycling. The cycling route cut through the fields and mountains of the countryside and was theoretically the most Infected-free zone in the entire country.

Still, Jisung fretted.

It seemed like such a monumental task.

The half-lit lounge felt cavernous, swallowing him up in shadows and silence. Jisung never realised how much noise and space the six of them took up when they were all there together, bickering over mundane stuff and fighting for the last bite of food.

“You’re up early,” a voice broke the silence. Jisung jumped, not having heard Jaemin enter. He was clutching a massive cup of coffee with the words ‘LIQUID MOTIVATION’ stamped over it.

“Aren’t we leaving in an hour?” Jisung wrinkled his forehead.

“Exactly,” Jaemin took a seat opposite him, sipping his coffee and watching Jisung with bright eyes. “I thought you would still be sleeping until I dragged you out of bed.”

Jisung shifted in his seat, “Couldn’t really sleep,” he mumbled. It was too early and he was much too distracted to fight.

There was a pause. “Me neither,” Jaemin admitted quietly.

Jisung glanced at him in surprise. It was the last thing he expected from Jaemin. Maybe a snarky remark, or a lecture, or for Jaemin to tell him that he better not fall back. Anything but something that betrayed that cool, impenetrable façade.

Jaemin was resolutely not looking at him, plucking the bagel out of its wrapper with long, skeletal fingers and dunking it into his coffee. “Oh, ew,” the words fell out of his mouth before he consciously thought about it. “Coffee in bread? Really?”

Jaemin glared at him. “It’s coffee bread, you heathen.”

Jisung couldn’t find his tongue for a moment at the utter absurdity of the statement, “No, the hell it’s not!”

Whatever Jaemin was about to send back was interrupted by a sleep-ruffled, groggy, and very annoyed Donghyuck who irritably grumbled something about Jaemin’s voice, and which promptly took the attention off of him.

Under cover of the fighting, Jisung stole Jaemin’s cup and inconspicuously took a sip, regretting it immediately when the taste hit his tastebuds. Yeah, definite ew. Jaemin really should reset his sense of taste. 

30:05:06

Donghyuck cracked open the door, doing a quick check both sides and motioning to them. They squeezed out, Jisung just managing to avoid slamming the bicycle against the metal door as he did.

The cold air smacked Jisung in the face, clearing the last remnants of lethargy instantly. The university campus was dead quiet save for the occasional rustle of dried leaves. Jisung followed after Jaemin and Donghyuck, their familiarity with the layout of the place enabling them to navigate near sightlessly.

Jisung wheeled his bicycle along the narrow path that wound around the back of the building, balancing himself on the edge of the shallow gutter while his bicycle rolled along noiselessly.

Without his sense of sight, all of Jisung’s other senses sharpened to pick up on the slightest disturbance in the tomb-like silence. Donghyuck, who was leading the front, suddenly stopped short. All of them listened, motionless, as the dragging sound of an Infected approached them. The Infected lumbered into view, just a silhouette in the darkness, and for a moment it stopped right in front of them, turning its head to stare straight at them.

Jisung barely dared to breathe.

He could feel the tension rolling in waves off Jaemin who was right ahead of him. He fought the urge to reach for his knife, knowing that any movement would be a bad idea.

The Infected stared in their direction for a few long, agonising breaths before turning away, dragging its feet along as it disappeared round the corner. They waited for a few minutes after it faded into silence before starting to move again. A sense of urgency now imbued their movements as they walked the meandering path to the main gate of the campus.

Ajou university was significantly more into landscaping than Yonsei and the footpath they walked along was lined with trees and thick shrubbery on both sides. They stole along like shadows, camouflaging with the looming shapes of the trees. Jisung’s nerves were stretched taut, Jisung was half-expecting a nasty surprise behind every turn even though he knew that the rustle of the leaves would be their best alarm.

After what felt like an eternity, the main gate finally, finally emerged. He and Chenle, under Renjun’s supervision, had painstakingly oiled and pulled the metal gates almost completely shut over the course of several nights when they first arrived, leaving a gap small enough for one person to slip out at a time. It was meant to keep the majority of any stray Infected out, who would usually not notice a gap in their mindless wandering.

In their case now, it also meant that they would be saved the trouble of scaling it with their bikes.

Donghyuck glanced back at them and through an unspoken signal, they mounted their bicycles and set off, pedalling as fast as they can.

Suwon was distinctly less infested than Seoul thanks to the government’s clean up and their efforts over the years. Logically, that made cycling through in pitch darkness safer than when they made the suicidal journey from Seoul three years ago but the complete absence of sound and light put Jisung even more on edge instead. Every darkened building they passed felt as though it was filled with ghosts, watching them. They cycled past the Hwaseong fortress, the high walls and rugged watchtowers looming above them, silent sentries as they circled around.

The endless walls final curved away as they diverged away from the city centre and headed for the highway. In the open space of the highway, the eeriness subsided somewhat but Jisung couldn’t shake off the feeling of unease. The hairs at the back of his neck were standing on end and it wasn’t from the cold. “Light up the glowsticks,” Donghyuck panted.

“Not yet,” Jaemin refused quickly. He sounded breathless too, even though it was obvious that he was trying to hide it. “We’re not far away enough from the city.”

“Jaemin, we’re driving blind here,” Donghyuck said testily. “The last thing we need is to miss our turn and end up with an extra few days of cycling.” Before Jaemin could argue further, he sniped, “The only one below the age of thirty here is Jisungie over there. He’ll end up with two dead bodies on his hands if we overwork our old hearts.”

Jaemin didn’t say anything to that, which Jisung took to be grudging agreement. Reaching behind him, he clumsily patted around the side pockets of his bag for the glowsticks. Cracking them, he passed them to the other two, throwing a circle of light around their path.

“Oh, fuck,” Donghyuck cursed, braking hard and turning abruptly at a fork in the road.

“Where are you going?” Jaemin demanded, sailing past the turn and braking some distance ahead. Jisung pulled up next to him, looking back at Donghyuck. “We’re supposed to go straight – ”

“Just follow me kids, I know a shortcut to that place,” Donghyuck dismissed him quickly. He looked around, gesturing to them urgently, “Hurry up, I don’t want to stay here for too long. I have a weird feeling about this place.”

That makes two of us, Jisung agreed, silently grateful when Jaemin turned back without arguing further. “You didn’t mention anything about a shortcut before,” Jaemin said.

Donghyuck sighed, theatrically annoyed. “Because I didn’t want to give you any more reason to make me come along, duh.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> First off, I'd like to clarify that AHTK is going to be more character-based and personal compared to my other stories. It deals with issues of course, but the issues are more on a personal scale and centred on young adults than the society commentary I did previously for HOBI and PL 2089.
> 
> Anyways! Na Jaemin. Some readers commented on his character and how he - and the others - seemed a lot moodier this time compared to HOBI. I hope this chapter clarifies some things along with the previous chapters where I had dropped hints too. TLDR; Being burnt out is a thing in research. Especially in research. So is idealism and sacrifices. Sacrifice is always, always, a driving factor in life.


	5. 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Double updateeeee

30:07:42

The first rays of sunlight were a welcome respite.

Jisung could practically hear the exhale of relief from the three of them when the dim blue of dawn cracked to let the liquid golden sunlight pour through. “Let’s pullover for breakfast in a bit,” Donghyuck suggested.

Jaemin shrugged, suspiciously agreeable. “Sure.”

They did not stop for breakfast. They stopped for lunch.

And that was only because Donghyuck threatened to cycle back to Suwon.

They had left the endless highways about an hour ago and entered the first part of the bicycle route. Unlike the dull grey asphalt of the highways, this route ran parallel to a river, the wooden slats of the path creaking occasionally as they cycled past.

Here, the noise didn’t matter so much anymore. Not when there wasn’t a single sign of human inhabitation in sight, just expanses of greenery stretching in all directions and the grey shadows of faraway mountains.

It was beautiful, even therapeutic, but Jisung really needed a break.

Jisung got off the bicycle, legs so shaky they felt like they would buckle at the knee. Donghyuck wobbled over to the side and collapsed to the ground, uncaring of the dirt. Jaemin took more time to dismount, checking their surroundings with narrowed eyes before slowly getting off.

Jisung walked over to Donghyuck, sliding down the wooden barriers next to him and slumping to the ground. “Doing all right, Jisungie?” Donghyuck asked, sounding on the verge of death.

Jisung grunted, passing him a bottle of water.

Jaemin was rummaging through his bag. He pulled out a few packets of microwavable rice and cans of food, handing it out to them. “Eat up.”

Jisung took the proffered rice and tuna gratefully, ripping open the two packets of rice at one go and scraping the cans of tuna in. “What about you?”

“I’m not hungry,” Jaemin answered shortly, sinking to the ground close to them. He was looking at an open map with a frown, biting his lip in thought.

“You should still eat,” Donghyuck said, already halfway through his packet of rice. “Jeno’s going to kill me if you drop dead.”

Jaemin shook his head, stretching his skinny legs out in front of him and shaking them out. “Exercise kills my appetite. I’ll eat when we camp out for the night.”

Jisung got onto his knees, sliding over clumsily and lifting a bite of rice and tuna to Jaemin’s lips. Jaemin startled, jerking away instinctively before accepting the food. Jisung felt a sense of victory akin to feeding a standoffish cat.

“Where do you think we should camp for the night?” Donghyuck asked after they were done eating. “It’s winter, we could camp near the route but it might get a little chilly.”

Jaemin tapped his fingers on his knee thoughtfully. “The other alternative is to divert to a town. Jeno and I put up at hotels – ”

“ – you mean love hotels?” Donghyuck sniggered, still able to summon the energy to annoy Jaemin.

“ – because he gets grouchy if he sleeps badly,” Jaemin continued, blatantly ignoring Donghyuck. “We could camp out in a building and I reckon that it’ll be a lot warmer and we could also use that chance to stock up on food but…” he hesitated. “I’m not too keen on that idea.”

“Same,” Donghyuck agreed, sobering quickly. “As much as I’d like that, I’d rather stay away from any form of civilization, if I’m going to be honest.” He looked round at them unhappily, “Maybe I haven’t been out for too long, I’m getting so paranoid that I feel as though we’re going to be attacked at any moment.”

32:09:15

Jisung was getting into the rhythm of things. It almost felt like a spiritual journey to wake up at the break of dawn, pack up the tent and set off. The expanse of sky stretched endlessly and the quietness of the surrounding mountains and river put him into a meditative state.

Maybe he was worrying too much. He got this.

35:15:32

Jisung is not going to get this.

“How much more to this fucking mountain?” Donghyuck snarled breathlessly.

Jisung gave up, dismounting and almost sending the whole bicycle careening _backwards_ down the slope. “No,” he held up a finger before Jaemin could open his mouth. “Ten minutes. Or I’ll throw myself over the cliff.”

Jaemin rolled his eyes.

A moment later, he joined them on the ground, slumping to the floor in uncharacteristic gracelessness and passing them a bottle of water with limb hands.

“For the record,” Donghyuck said, clearly summoning every ounce of energy in him. Jisung could practically hear him gearing up for an attack. “Like I’ve said before countless times – I hate your ideas, and I hate you, Na Jaemin.”

Jaemin turned his head to glare at Donghyuck with slitted eyes. “Fuck. You.” He hissed. Before Donghyuck could say anything back, he continued ominously, “Don’t forget who’s giving you your food tonight.”

They glared at each other.

36:20:28

“We need to stop for food,” Jaemin, the guardian of the granary, announced on the sixth day.

“Didn’t we pack enough for ten days?” Donghyuck frowned. The fire they started with a pile of dead leaves and newspapers cast flickering shadows on his face, deepening the grooves of exhaustion carved into his face.

Jisung huddled deeper into his travel blanket, too weary to partake in the conversation. The near-continuous cycling and uncomfortable sleep was starting to take its toll and the lousy food they were consuming were hardly enough to replenish their strength.

“I underestimated the amount of food we would need,” Jaemin replied, unzipping the rucksack where he kept the food.

“ _You_ made a mistake?” Donghyuck asked incredulously. “ _Na Jaemin_ came underprepared?”

Jaemin shrugged, “Mistakes are meant to prove that despite popular belief, I’m only human, not god,” he replied flippantly.

“You didn’t even eat much,” Donghyuck mumbled in confusion as Jaemin handed Jisung his usual rice packets and threw a packet of shrimp instant noodles to Donghyuck far less gently. Jaemin’s hand trembled as Jisung accepted the packets of rice from him. He quickly drew his hand away, laying it in his lap. Beside him, the camping bag of food was half empty, a few mere cans of spam compared to when it was bursting out of the seams on the first day.

“There’s lesser than I thought there would be,” Jisung observed. It didn’t make sense, Jaemin ate concerningly little during the journey, a fact that was even more apparent when compared to how much Jisung and Donghyuck were eating when they stopped over for the night. “Were we going through the food that fast?”

He looked up when it was met with silence. Donghyuck’s eyes were lingering on Jaemin’s hands. His eyes moved up to meet Jaemin’s eyes wordlessly, face inscrutable. The other man looked back calmly. Donghyuck’s gaze flicked over to Jisung briefly and then back to Jaemin. Before Jisung could begin figuring out what was going on, Donghyuck was looking away, having clearly come to some kind of unspoken agreement with Jaemin.

He leaned over to futilely plump the travel pillow, settling down. “We’re stopping by Daegu,” he said with a note of finality, closing his eyes languidly. “Injunnie showed me a place before and their galbi-jjim is _divine_. That’s not a request, by the way,” he cut off Jaemin before he could begin. “I need meat or I’ll lose my ass, and I don’t want all of you to be deprived of that sight.”

Jaemin stood up abruptly, grabbing a pillow and attempting to smother Donghyuck,

37:03:12

When Jisung was a child, he used to be haunted by nightmares. It was one of the things that came with having a hyperactive imagination, along with concerned parent-teacher meetings about his imaginary friends and perplexing drawings. He would wake up crying and wetting the bed embarrassingly often (a favourite in Chenle’s mental folder on Park Jisung). It went away naturally as he got older, but it would come back occasionally whenever he was particularly stressed or when he repeated the unfortunate mistake of sneaking into cinemas to watch the R19 horror movies Chenle insisted on catching.

And then, of course, when the living nightmare started, the insomnia immediately invited itself in as Jisung’s constant companion. Before they moved in with Jaemin at their fortress of a lab, every night was a test of how long he could sleep before his eyes would fly open, heart pounding so hard in his chest he could almost hear it as he lay motionlessly in the dark, unable to go back to sleep, paranoia heightening every whisper of sound.

So when his eyes snapped open suddenly, Jisung was momentarily transported to the past, frigid, paralysing terror crashing through him like a wave and every muscle tensed to flee. The fog in his mind cleared and he relaxed, gaining bearing of his surroundings and reminding himself that he’s okay, that Jaemin is here, and Donghyuck, and that he isn’t alone. The tent shivered as the night wind blew hard against it, a tendril of breeze sneaking in and playfully sliding into the warm cocoon of his sleeping bag.

Jisung exhaled, listening to Jaemin’s quiet breathing next to him and trying to calm himself down. It must be the open space, Jisung decided. Ever since it started, there hasn’t been a single time where he had to lay out like that in the open. Even when they were hiding from the Infected, it was always from within the confines of a building. Though it was strange that he would only startle awake _now_ , when he was just fine the first night and had at least a week to get used to –

A twig cracked.

The blood drained from him so fast it felt as though the wind itself had slid into his body instead. Slowly, neck creaking, Jisung turned his head to the side where the noise had come from.

Jaemin lay on his back, peacefully asleep and as immobile as a corpse.

Jisung’s eyes drifted from him to the canvas of the tent, staring and watchful.

The copse of trees they had set up camp beside whispered among themselves. The wind subsided and they fell silent.

Then.

The carpet of leaves rustled as something dragged languidly over them.

Jisung sat up slowly, careful not to make the slightest noise. It was completely dark out, Jisung could barely see his own hand in front of him and chances are that whatever is out there can’t see him either.

The dragging sound came again, another set joining the first. Jisung strained his ears, making a mental count and mind racing to think of a plan. He could keep completely still and pray that they go away, but if one of them so much as pokes their head into the tent, or crashes into it, they would most certainly find the three of them trapped like flies in a spiderweb.

A cold hand touched his and he flinched, barely restraining himself from gasping. He turned around and found Donghyuck awake, eyes glinting faintly in the dark and fixed onto the outside of the tent. Jisung reached over to his other side and lay a hand on Jaemin’s shoulder, knowing that the other was a light sleeper.

Jaemin didn’t move.

Jisung frowned, shaking his shoulder. Jaemin’s eyes opened slowly and he gazed at Jisung blankly. He looked like he could barely recognise Jisung. Donghyuck stretched his torso past Jisung, murmuring something into Jaemin’s ear that was too quiet for Jisung to catch. Jaemin nodded, sitting up.

The three of them waited in painful anticipation, hands gripping weapons and legs folded awkwardly under them, unable to shift for fear of making the slightest rustle. The leaves crackled underfoot outside the tent, there was no longer any doubt as to what was out there, not with that awful, putrid scent so close to them. 

There was a moment of absolute stillness, the world held her breath with them.

The Infected crashed into their tent clumsily, yowling and ripping the night into chaos. The three of them sprang up, scrambling to get out of the collapsing tent and the mess of canvas and poles. “Get to the bicycles!” Donghyuck ordered, springing forward and tearing the entrance flap open. A moment later, he cursed, staggering back as he kicked away an Infected. Jisung joined him and understood why a second later.

They were everywhere.

The crowd of Infected surrounding them raised their cries at the sight of them, lumbering towards the three of them. From their clothes, they looked like they were the farmers who tended the fields when they were alive, though none of that characteristic kindliness was in their faces as they snarled and reached for them.

“Get to the bicycles!” Donghyuck yelled again, dispatching an Infected with two swift cuts to the eye and neck.

Jisung shoved away an old lady, distantly feeling a vague sense of apology when she toppled over. “Jisung,” the voice was breathless, desperate, at his elbow. Jisung turned around, yanking an Infected away from Jaemin amidst his horror as it almost managed to bite into Jaemin’s arm. He quickly slit its throat, shoving it away and grabbing Jaemin’s hand and dragging him away from the melee.

“We have to go,” Jaemin wheezed, “There’s too many of them. And I can’t fight.”

Jisung didn’t have time to figure out that strange statement. Donghyuck was already at the bicycles, just barely managing to fight off the approaching Infected. “Jisung! Get Jaemin on a bicycle! He can’t run!”

That statement rattled around his head and settled down. Later, when he had plenty more time and significantly less of their current problem, he would chew it over and realise, with a creeping sense that he was a bigger idiot than he thought himself to be, exactly what it meant and what was going on. But in that moment, it was no thoughts, just head empty.

He shoved Jaemin towards the bicycle. “Go!” he shouted, as the Infected rushed towards them, the ones he didn’t managed to completely dispatch staggering to their feet. “I’ll keep them away!”

Jaemin cast him one last, desperate glance and set off. Just in time too as Jisung encountered the first of the wave. He threw them off, struggling to drag the bicycle far enough to mount and set off. They yowled, catching his clothes and pulling him backwards. Jisung mounted the bicycle – and fell, their hands grabbing the bicycle. He dodged their hands, straining to free himself from their clutches on his padded jacket and the rucksack on his back.

There was no time, Jisung made up his mind in a split-second.

Jisung shrugged off the bag in one swift movement. The Infected who had been holding onto it with a vice-like grip fell back from the sudden absence of resistance. Without giving them a chance to recover, he abandoned the bicycle, throwing it bodily at them and sprinting off in a mad dash. His footsteps pounded down the pavement, thanking god for his long legs as he practically bounded over the asphalt in pitch darkness, the waxy light of the moon just barely enough for him to make out the silhouettes of the trees. The screams of the Infected echoed behind him as they gave chase.

His breath fogged up in front of him, the cold air knives in his lungs as he ran helter-skelter, limbs flying messily. Never in his life could he have imagined himself running down a mountain path like a lunatic from frenzied old people determined to eat him. An Infected suddenly burst into his path. Jisung gasped, not able to stop his momentum, he crashed into the Infected, legs sprawling as he fell to the ground above the Infected. Without thinking, he stabbed in the general direction of its face and clambered up, running off without bothering to check further.

The yowling was spreading, Jisung realised with a sense of despair, slowing down to catch his breath. The surrounding mountains were catching their sounds and echoing it. It was only a matter of time before the entire goddamn valley was on him. Ahead of him, a path diverged away from the bicycle route, leading to the fields they passed earlier that day. He ran towards it, footsteps thudding in the dirt, painfully loud and heavy.

The fields stretched open on both sides of the path, leaving him completely exposed. In the distance, Jisung could just make out the outline of the farmhouses and the echoes of growling from within. He cursed under his breath, none of them realised how close the mountain route was to civilizations. All it took was one Infected to set off the whole nest. There was no way that he could continue his marathon, the alarms would last for hours and even if he outran this group, more would come, drawn by the hunting cries. He had to find a place to hide it out until it was calmer.

Jisung made his decision, jogging towards the farmhouses. As he neared it, he caught sight of an Infected coming round the corner of a building. Without thinking, he dropped into a crouch, swaying drunkenly and moving as quickly as he could without being too suspicious. The Infected’s growling stopped short at the sight of him, seemingly in confusion.

Jisung didn’t waste any time waiting for him to figure it out, he rounded the corner of the adjacent building, feet ghosting over the maze of paths. It was clearly a community of some sorts, the buildings were packed closely together, the alleyways small enough that it wouldn’t take a lot to trap Jisung in if they found him. He didn’t dare to enter a house but staying out wasn’t an option either. At the sound of the cries, Jisung’s desperation peaked. He grabbed hold of the low wall beside him, his height letting him reach the top with ease.

Hauling himself up, Jisung balanced himself on the narrow wall and stood up. Heart in his throat, Jisung walked the perimeter of the wall like a tightrope to the rooftop of the building it surrounded until he reached a point where the roof stretched towards him far enough that he could cross the empty space and onto the roof.

His feet made scrabbling noises on the roof tiles and he froze. When no sound came from within the house, he started moving again, tucking himself into the triangular space as best as he could. It was a tight fit and he struggled to balance on the narrow ledge.

Barely a minute later, dragging sounds passed below, growling softly amongst themselves.

Jisung exhaled, feeling absurdly relieved on his stupid perch as he watched them pass.

It was the absolute worst scenario he could imagine. Alone, without supplies, barely sheltered in the middle of winter, sitting on the roof like an oversized pigeon. And to think that barely six hours ago his biggest worry was whether they had enough food left. Fuck food supplies, his meals were going to be the fat stores on his own body.

37:09:10

When sunrise broke, Jisung spent an agonising thirty minutes worrying uselessly that they would see him from his perch. Fortunately, by some stroke of luck, his perch faced another building, separated by a narrow path. Unless someone walked along this path and looked directly up, no one would see him.

The sounds had died down a while ago. The house below had been silent the whole time that Jisung was hiding. When he deemed it safe enough, Jisung unfolded his legs, feeling his joints creak from staying in that cramped position for so many hours. He carefully slid over the slippery rooftiles, making sure not to kick at any loose tiles.

Jisung landed in the courtyard with a soft thump. He froze, straining to hear any sounds from within. When it stayed silent, Jisung cautiously started moving again. His foot sank into soft mud and he looked down with a frown. A few cabbages peeked out from beneath his feet. He pulled them up, dusting the dirt off and stuffing it into his jacket. He half-wondered if he should even bother when a few leaves weren’t going to be much energy compared to the calorie bombs of instant noodles and spam.

The door of the house hung half open and he peeked inside. It was dark and empty. Jisung edged in, heart pounding. As far as he could tell, it was completely deserted. He crept to the kitchen, poking around for anything that could be useful and finding absolutely nothing. The shelves were cleared of food and it looked like someone had come in before him and ransacked the place for anything of value.

Disappointed but not particularly surprised, Jisung made his way out. As he walked through the garden, he made a cursory glance around the courtyard again and almost had a heart attack at the sight of a decapitated head.

Jisung bit back a curse, edging towards the head gingerly.

It was lying amidst the soft mud, so badly decayed that it barely resembled a head. Jisung grimaced when he approached, backing away quickly at the sight of the squirming maggots all over it. An oriental magpie hopped along the branch of a tree that hung low over the garden, eyeing him beadily. It fluttered down to the head as he left, pecking at the head. Jisung’s stomach churned at the sight, whether from nausea or hunger he wasn’t sure.

He turned away, not at all inclined to continue watching Nat Geo Kr. His own life was an unending season of Walking Dead already, he didn’t need anymore entertainment.

Jisung reached up to the low wall, pulling himself up just enough to peek over the lip of the wall. His arms trembled with exertion but he didn’t dare to clamber up into a more comfortable position.

The alleyway was empty. It looked like whatever was lingering in the village was drawn out last night by the sounds, leaving him in a deserted village. Jisung heaved himself up, swinging clumsily over the wall and painfully cracking his jaw on the wall in the process. Out of habit, he patted himself down, finding his knife miraculously still on him and –

His phone.

Jisung yanked it out of his pocket, holding it up to the light in disbelief. His battered iPhone 8 with the hideously cracked screen lit up tiredly, blinking a dangerous 12%.

“Oh my god,” he whispered to himself in fervour. The sunlight glinted off him and into his eyes. Jisung’s eyes watered from the glare, he felt ready to start crying there and then. Jisung hurriedly unlocked it, the momentary euphoria rapidly draining away when the single bar of service vanished suddenly, leaving behind a mocking ‘No Service’.

Jisung’s mood soured.

Fucking iPhones.

37:15:30

Jisung was hungry, tired, and rather in the mood to stab someone.

He had been walking for hours, tracing his way back to the bicycle path and praying that he was going the right direction. If he was, he’ll eventually pass by Daegu and he can hunt for the two of them there. If he wasn’t…well he can just imagine the look on Renjun’s and Jeno’s face when he returns without Donghyuck and Jaemin. The Infected might be a more welcoming committee in that scenario.

Jisung didn’t let himself think too much about the possibility of _him_ not finding the two. 

Jisung pulled out his phone, unlocking it out of habit and glaring at the red bar. He slowed down, head hanging low over it as he stared at the blank notifications bar. He might as well have been walking to school with the way he was practically strolling along, glued to his phone. Jaemin would have a fit if he saw him like this.

At the thought of Jaemin, Jisung stilled, footsteps stuttering for a moment before continuing on. He stuffed his phone back into his pocket, shoving his hands in, mood darker than before.

He’s such a bloody idiot. He’d think that after three years, he would have learnt a bit about the unfathomable, elusive heart of Na Jaemin. Like hell he wasn’t hungry. And like hell he came underprepared. It was Jisung who was eating more than his share and straight into Jaemin’s, who never said a word except to grumpily snap that he lost his appetite.

It’s such a _Jaemin_ thing to say. And that was probably why neither of them noticed, except for Donghyuck, who was a lot sharper than they gave him credit for.

Jisung kicked a pebble away, ashamed and guilty and furious with himself. Three years later and Jisung is still the weak link. Jisung always knew that he was slow, too rash and impulsive to pick up on the silent cues that he ought to. That’s how he ended up being taken care of by everyone around and he doesn’t even have the decency to notice it.

No wonder Chenle kept calling him a baby. He really was with how much of a dumbass he had been.

Jisung groaned aloud to himself. If this last week of malnourishment and exertion ended up being the tipping point for Jaemin’s poor, abused body to give up and drop dead, Jeno would slaughter him _and_ Donghyuck.

37:17:12

One measly bar.

Jisung’s eyes widened. He started to jog, speeding up urgently as he chased the bar like the fading sunbeams. He pressed the speed dial for Jaemin’s number, the bar dropping dangerously to 8% from that strenuous action alone.

“Pick up, pick up,” Jisung muttered, pressing the phone to his ear. Of all times for Na Jaemin to leave him on read or ignore his calls, this is the absolute worst. The call connected abruptly.

“Park Jisung, where the _fuck_ are you?” Jaemin roared, livid. Jisung never heard him sound so furious before.

“I’m…” Jisung started excitedly before trailing away. He looked around him helplessly. Twenty of the same trees laughed back. “Damn, they all look the same,” he whispered to himself.

“Park Jisung!” Jaemin sounded like he was close to busting a vein.

“I don’t know!” Jisung said, feeling monumentally stupid. “I continued on the route we were on yesterday and I got one bar of service so I should be close to a town.”

“Did you pass any signboards?” Jaemin asked, calming down slightly.

“Yeah,” Jisung switched the phone to his other hand, leaving his right hand free to loosely grip the knife. “They told me that I was headed south.”

There was a pause. Jaemin sighed wearily. “Well, the opposite direction of Suwon is most definitely not north,” he said dryly. 

Jisung winced. He rubbed his forehead, smacking himself in the eye with the handle of the knife. “Ow, fuck,” he frowned down at the knife reproachfully. “Where are you guys? Are you at Daegu?”

There was silence. Jisung pulled the phone away in confusion. The blank screen stared back.

Jisung swore colourfully.

_Fucking iPhones._

37:18:52

The outline of a town started to emerge from the winter gloom. Jisung attempted to jog for three seconds before giving up. His motivation died two hours ago together with his phone battery. Why the hell was it so much work to be alive? He just wants a bloody GPS and to air drop his location to Jaemin.

A cold gust of wind promptly reminded him that unless he wants to roost like a pigeon for the second night in a row, he better get his ass to shelter. Jisung reluctantly sped up to a brisk walk, the maximum amount of effort he was willing to put in at this point.

‘DAEGU 15 km’ a wooden signboard notified him brightly. 15 km? That’s about an hour’s walk, half if he had a bicycle but no, last night’s Jisung thought that it made for a good wrecking ball.

“About time,” a voice called out. Jisung almost jumped right out of his skin. He looked around him wildly, seeing no one. Shit, was he hearing voices? Was it a ghost?

“Look up,” the voice said again, amused. Jisung did, recognising Donghyuck’s voice as he did.

Donghyuck grinned down at him from where he was crouched on a thick tree branch with Jaemin reclined beside him. His usual haughty elegance failed to disguise the overall effect of them resembling oversized birds. “If it had been another hour,” Jaemin sniffed delicately, “I would have dumped your ass and went to Busan without you.”

Jisung stared at them wordlessly. “Come down,” he said gruffly, voice rough.

Jaemin raised an eyebrow but slid off, landing lightly on the ground before Donghyuck could move. “What?” he said, at his most disgruntled voice.

Jisung strode forward, clearing the distance between them. Jaemin’s eyes widened in alarm as Jisung barrelled towards him and without warning, he threw his arms around Jaemin, clinging to the older man for all he was worth.

There was a fine trembling all over. Jisung couldn’t tell who it was coming from, not when Jaemin was holding him back just as tightly, not when he was holding Jisung as though he would never let him go again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay apparently cycling from Seoul to Busan is a thing. I know, people are insane. But okay to be fair, the pictures of the countryside are absolutely beautiful.
> 
> Now let's all coo over baby Jisungie


	6. 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Double update!! This chapter and the next is a little immunology heavy. You might want to wait for me to post the end notes and the epilogue before starting it. Or, you could just bombard me with questions. I'll be happy to walk you through it

37:19:00

“What happened to Daegu?” Jisung asked sometime later when his fit of insane sentimentality had passed. Jaemin was pointedly not looking at him, presumably just as embarrassed.

Donghyuck shook his head, kicking away a pebble. They were wheeling their bicycles beside them as they walked, blankets tied to them haphazardly. Jisung thought they made a very sorry sight compared to when they first started, considering that this was all that was left of Na Jaemin’s overpreparation. “Too dangerous. Even before we entered Daegu, we encountered way too many Infected to be comfortable and frankly I’m not exactly raring to have a go at zombies with a tree branch. Jaemin here,” Donghyuck threw the man a tired, exasperated look, “estimated the remaining distance to Busan to be a little less than 100 km.”

“We’re not going to cycle through the night, are we?” Jisung asked, dismayed.

“We won’t,” Jaemin said grudgingly, looking like it was a bitterly fought compromise. “But we really do have to get there quickly, it’s not the best idea to stay out.” As he spoke, a gust of wind blew suddenly and Jaemin’s body shuddered violently. Donghyuck tugged a blanket out of the ties and threw it over Jaemin’s shoulders wordlessly.

“I saw a bunch of convenience stores along the way,” Jisung said tentatively, eyeing Jaemin with trepidation, “We could always find food or at least a shelter in those places.”

“Food and shelter isn’t our biggest problem,” Donghyuck said. “I mean this is just speculation,” he spoke quickly as if to lighten the effect of his words. “But Jaemin and I thought it was sort of odd that we encountered them like that when we barely saw any coming down.”

Oh. That _was_ a little weird now that he thought about it. Where did they come from? Aside from themselves, they hadn’t encountered anything remotely moving on the way down. And how did they know to attack the tents? And in complete darkness no less? It was almost as though they knew what and when to attack. “What do you think it is?” Jisung prompted.

Donghyuck exchanged an uncomfortable glance with Jaemin. “Jaemin thinks we got ambushed.”

“Is that even possible?” Jaemin wasn’t the kind to throw around things like that thoughtlessly, but even so Jisung’s mind automatically rebelled against the idea. The Infected _didn’t_ think. That was what distinguished them so strikingly with the living, and it was part of how Jisung came to terms with having to kill them.

Jaemin clapped his hands together with an unnaturally wide grin abruptly, “So, do you remember what we taught you three years ago?” he said brightly, sounding like a psychotic kindergarten teacher.

Jisung shook his head, unnerved.

“Of course you don’t,” Jaemin said without an ounce of surprise, smile vanishing as quickly as it appeared. “You don’t even remember to take my plates out of the incubator.”

Jisung gave him a wounded look. That was just once and Jisung felt awful about it, but god forbid Na Jaemin ever forgets anything that goes wrong with his work. “Three years ago, you came back to Yonsei dripping blood and bringing a bunch of Infected with you. We talked about it then, about how it looked like the virus was developing selectivity in the parts of the brain it infects to allow the host to continue functioning in the background.”

“Right, we got chased out of Yonsei by smart zombies,” Jisung said dryly.

“Smart zombies that tracked you down with the blood trail you left behind,” Jaemin replied just as dryly.

“If they can track you down from blood trails, there’s a possibility that they developed the ability to stalk prey as well,” Donghyuck added. 

“It sounds like they’re evolving to become better predators,” Jisung said, feeling sickened. “Is the virus capable of that?”

“Why not?” Jaemin shrugged. “Every disease varies from host to host. Why do you think we haven’t cured so many diseases? That’s because we haven’t really found out how they work, and you can’t get rid of them without knowing that.”

“Aren’t drugs supposed to kill them?” Jisung wrinkled his forehead.

“Nope,” Jaemin popped the ‘p’, sounding much more cheerful than the situation entailed. Then again, Na Jaemin has always lived off the adrenaline of exploring the unknown. “That’s a common misconception. You use antivirals against viruses, and they aren’t the same as antibiotics. They can’t kill the virus, they can only stop it from reproducing. If you want to completely erase their existence from the earth, you have to make sure that there isn’t a single host out there for the virus to exist in. Because viruses cannot exist outside of a host.”

Jisung sniffed, wiping his nose on his sleeve. It was getting dark and the temperature was dropping rapidly. Any colder and his shit would be coming out of him like ice cubes from a machine. “Is that what we have to do to get rid of it? Make the entire human population immune?” Just the thought of it was overwhelming, a herculean task that seemed impossible to surmount.

“With how things are going lately, it’s not a question of whether I want to or not anymore,” Jaemin shivered again, pulling the blanket tightly around him. “We can’t keep medicating people. For one, the supply will run low eventually. For another, people never listen to doctor’s orders,” he made a sour face at that, “I wouldn’t completely dismiss the possibility of the virus developing resistance to the drug after a while.”

There was something off about Jaemin’s words that Jisung couldn’t quite put his finger on. Jaemin’s words bounced around in his head, not coming together long enough to fit into something tangible. The walls of words from the immunology textbooks he had slaved over for months and months spun through his head in a jumbled mess. It was times like this when he really missed Chenle. It would be helpful as hell if he had another (much smarter) voice in his head.

He tacked a mental post-it note, reminding himself to think about it later. Drugs, antivirals, resistance.

37:22:38

The leaves rustled as the wind blew through them. A few stray leaves fluttered down onto Jisung’s face. He brushed them away irritably, swaying dangerously on the tree branch and glancing above him unhappily.

Jaemin was similarly tied to a tree branch, his fluffy pink blanket contrasting horribly with the neon green ropes keeping him safely secured to the tree. Donghyuck was on his other side, fast asleep. He had moodily munched on the pathetic scraps of leaves he dug from Jisung’s pockets before giving up and opting for sleep for dinner. Jisung could relate. His own stomach grumbled but he wasn’t desperate enough to eat grass clippings. He’d rather starve.

“Sleep,” Jaemin said sternly, feeling Jisung’s gaze on him with uncanny instinct. “We have to get to Busan tomorrow.”

“Exactly how are we supposed to get there?” Jisung couldn’t help asking despite knowing the futility of questioning a tired Jaemin. “There’s three of us but only two bicycles.”

Jaemin yawned, “Ask me that tomorrow.”

Jisung rolled his eyes. There was a short silence. “So is there going to be someone we can meet up with there?”

“Ask. Me. Tomorrow.” Jaemin’s voice was deadly.

Jisung sighed, knowing that there wasn’t anything else he could get out of Jaemin. Especially now when he had mentally checked out of thinking for the day.

“Don’t be so worried,” Jaemin murmured, his characteristic drawl even more pronounced now that he was on the verge of sleep. “I’ll sort it out.”

Jisung had no doubt that he will. Either he already has a plan, or he would stay up all night half-asleep, thinking of a million back up plans to his back up plans. Jisung turned on his side as quietly as he could without falling off, looking out from the tree and to the nearby river. Under the moonlight, it was still and quiet, a silver mirror in the dark. His stomach rumbled again. “I’m hungry,” he said aloud.

There was a deep sigh from above.

“for Jeno’s cooking,” Jisung tacked on hastily. An icy breeze blew, raising goosebumps over his exposed skin. “Oh wow, it’s kind of cold here. Hey, aren’t you cold?”

The exasperated sigh Jaemin let out was interrupted by Donghyuck turning on his side, aggressively loud. “Park Jisung,” he said in a voice of mock-sweetness throaty with drowsiness, “ _Go to sleep_.”

Jisung shut up.

38:06:00

“Wake up, Jisung,” a voice filtered into his consciousness.

“Mmm?” Jisung mumbled instinctively.

“Wake up,” the voice said more insistently.

“Mmm,” Jisung mumbled again, burrowing into the blanket. The bed disappeared suddenly and Jisung fell through space for a stomach-dropping moment. The ropes jerked him up and he dangled in the air in a tangle of ropes and blankets. “Oh fuck,” he swore loudly, startling awake in an instant.

Donghyuck’s high-pitched laughter floated up from below. Jisung glanced down with narrowed eyes, glaring at him.

Jaemin kicked him, stopping him mid-laughter. He looked up at Jisung with his hands on his hips, “Well?” he said impatiently. “Aren’t you going to get up?” With how Jaemin was talking to him, Jisung might as well have been in bed, not dangling three metres in the air.

“Are you going to catch me if I fall?” Jisung grumbled, struggling to untie himself. The knot loosened suddenly and Jisung tumbled out of his bindings. There was a grunt as someone caught him clumsily and the two fell to the ground messily.

Jisung groaned at the impact. Before he had time to recover, Donghyuck was pulling him upright. “Get up, you’re going to break Jaemin like a twig, fatass.” He shoved Jisung aside, pulling Jaemin up too.

Jaemin dusted himself off delicately, picking a piece of dried leaf off his shoulder. “At this point in life, death is preferable,” Jaemin said monotonously.

Donghyuck threw up a hand, “Agreed.”

“That’s nice,” Jisung said politely, “We’ll have enough bicycles to go around that way.”

Donghyuck looked like he was only remembering the problem now. “Oh god,” he said, face white. “The bicycles. Do we have to _walk_?”

Jisung narrowed his eyes at him, smirking internally as he schemed. There’s one person among them who’s notorious for making everyone walk all the way to the cold room to avoid it himself, and that person isn’t Jisung. Karma sure hits hard. 

38:10:25

Sometimes, karma misses and hits the person _next_ to the target.

“Can you go faster?” Donghyuck had the nerve to say snidely, “Jaemin’s going to abandon us and go off by himself at this rate.”

“Why don’t _you_ cycle, then?” Jisung snarled breathlessly. He half-regretted even bothering to speak, wheezing as he struggled to cycle with the added weight of Donghyuck on the bicycle. Of course no one was going to walk. Walking was slow and inefficient and Na Jaemin simply did not live like that.

“I’m old and feeble,” Donghyuck replied promptly without a shred of shame. “I need a strong, strapping youth like you to do the cycling.”

Jisung resisted the urge to stop the bicycle and throw Donghyuck into the river. “First of all,” he panted, “never say that sequence of words aloud ever again.” He shuddered as he recalled the words. “Second, I’m fucking starving, I don’t have the energy to go any faster.”

“You’ve been eating so much! You ate half our food supply!” Donghyuck said, outraged. He slapped Jisung’s shoulder, earning himself a growl of warning. “Just look at all this fat! Use up your energy source!” he yelled right into Jisung’s ear, probably on purpose.

“Stop hitting him!” Jaemin snapped, slowing down to draw parallel to them. “Do you think that’s going to help? He’ll go extra slow now just to piss you off!”

Jisung’s eye twitched. He was about to do exactly that. But now that Jaemin had said it, he refused to do it anymore. “Or,” he said sarcastically, “we could take a break – ”

“Out of the question,” Jaemin said without missing a beat.

“ – and Donghyuck can take over,” he amended. “It’s inefficient to go on like this.” Jisung dropped the trigger word deliberately.

Jaemin thought it over. “Swap places with Jisung,” he ordered.

“No!” Donghyuck refused immediately. “I’m old and weak – ”

Jaemin levelled him with an icy glare. “Swap.”

Donghyuck jumped off the bicycle.

38:13:42

“Okay, so are you going to tell me where we’re actually going in Busan?” Jisung asked hopefully when they settled down to rest. There better be a bed. And food. It’s barely been two days and Jisung was already half out of his mind with hunger. He had no idea how Jaemin managed for the past week or so.

“There should be people we can get in contact with in Busan,” Jaemin answered, huddling in his blanket and stretching his legs out in front of him. “Busan isn’t short of research centres.”

“Yes, but who?” Jisung persisted.

“I know a couple of people who I’ve had collaborations with when I started my PhD,” Jaemin said, still evading the question.

“Do you have a way to contact them?” Jisung asked forcefully, going straight to the point.

“No,” Jaemin admitted finally. “Donghyuck and I lost our phones back at the camp.”

“I have a phone,” Jisung tugged his out of the pocket. “Maybe we can – oh fuck.” The battery hovered at a tremulous 3%.

Donghyuck jerked up straight. “And you’re only telling us this now?”

“You never asked – like now,” Jisung muttered as Donghyuck snatched the phone from his hands.

“You’re such a Gen Z,” Donghyuck commented, “It’s finally coming in useful for us millennials.”

“Do you know anyone in Busan?” Jaemin demanded, scrambling over as well. “Their number? Anything?”

The three of them huddled over the battered iPhone. “My cousin does antibody work,” Donghyuck muttered, typing in a number rapidly and calling it. “I heard from him a couple of weeks ago so he should still be alive,” Donghyuck said with remarkable casualness as he waited for the call to connect.

“Will he take us in?” Jaemin asked, troubled. “People aren’t that welcoming, he might turn us away,” he trailed off uncertainly.

Donghyuck snorted. “Lee Taeyong? Turn away a charity case? Never.”

39:19:03

For a pair of cousins, Lee Taeyong and Lee Donghyuck were nothing alike.

Where Donghyuck took up space in the room with his presence and volume, Taeyong moved around like he was trying very hard to be invisible. He moved quietly, spoke quietly and existed quietly, the antithesis of Donghyuck. Probably the only thing that stopped him from vanishing into the wall entirely was the fact that it was impossible for anyone to not notice Lee Taeyong entering the room.

“Do you guys want more food?” Taeyong asked, holding up a massive pot of kimchi stew. His huge, doe-like eyes roved over them anxiously as he gnawed on his bitten lip.

Jisung handed him his bowl wordlessly, still starstruck by how unbelievably gorgeous he was. How the hell was Donghyuck related to him? Donghyuck looked like a squid. Jaemin pinched his thigh under the table reproachfully. “May I have some more, please?” Jisung tacked on politely, just a beat late.

Jaemin sighed silently beside him. Jisung peered at him in confusion. Oh, he was telling Jisung to stop eating. Taeyong brightened, not seeming to mind at all. “Of course!” his voice climbed a pitch, clearly delighted that his guests liked his food. He ladled a generous helping into Jisung’s bowl. “Do you want more rice too? Kimchi? I can fry an egg up for you if you want.”

“He’s going to get indigestion at this rate,” Donghyuck remarked, amused. He got up and stretched, strolling over to the well-stocked kitchen for a snack. Jisung thought they set up a pretty decent kitchen in their university, but it didn’t hold a candle to what Taeyong set up in his fancy corporate funded lab.

All this food and no company. Jisung wondered how it must be like to hear nothing but your own voice day after day, holed up in a fortress trying to fight a one-man battle. Perhaps that was why Taeyong kept looking at them with a mixture of fear and awe, like he couldn’t quite believe that there were people with him.

Taeyong sat down next to Jisung, uncommonly intense gaze fixated on him. He reached out suddenly, patting Jisung’s head as if to a stray puppy. “Poor kid,” he cooed, deaf to Donghyuck’s pointed mutter of the contrary, “You must have gone through a lot.”

Jisung would later dub it the Taeyong effect, where the combination of the gentle voice and even softer eyes, topped off with the siren-like beauty, culminated in a deadly effect of making the recipient go into idiot mode.

It was only much, much later, only after suffering through the humiliation of Donghyuck’s ridicule and Jaemin’s contempt, that Jisung would develop immunity to it. But in that moment, unprepared, naïve, Jisung was helpless. He looked up at Taeyong, transfixed. Jisung waved a hand, trying to aim for effortless nonchalance. “A little.”

His voice, the low, throaty baritone he considered his greatest and only charm, betrayed him, giving way and cracking horribly.

39:19:53

“Can I borrow your phone?” Jaemin asked without preamble.

Taeyong heaved the stack of plates into the sink, skinny arms bunching with the effort. “Sure,” he agreed easily, plucking his phone out of his pocket and handing it to Jaemin. “Someone you have to check up on?”

“Something like that,” Jaemin murmured, keying in the number. Through the open door, he could still hear Donghyuck laughing hysterically in the background. He hadn’t stopped for the past five minutes. “Excuse me,” he nodded at Taeyong in thanks, ducking out of the kitchen into the empty hallway.

Jaemin’s fingers tapped incessantly on his thigh, heart pounding loud enough he could practically hear his heartbeat in his ears. One, two, three, four…

“Hello?” a voice cautiously answered.

“Jeno,” Jaemin breathed out, heart clenching painfully. “Jeno. It’s me.”

There was silence. “Jeno?” Jaemin tried again, “Are you there? Can you hear me?”

A strangled laugh, devoid of humour, came from the other side of the line. “You asshole. What happened to calling every two days?” Jeno didn’t give Jaemin a chance to reply, the words tumbled out of him in a rush. “We couldn’t get through to _any_ of you. What the hell happened?”

“We lost our phones and Jisung’s died,” Jaemin said, slumping against the wall. He closed his eyes, grounding himself with Jeno’s voice. A bout of dizziness hit him and he let himself slide to the floor. The adrenaline had petered off when they arrived and with him finally letting go of the iron grip he had on his mind, the toll on his body was starting to make itself known. “We were ambushed by the Infected. They’re getting smarter, just like how we predicted them to.”

“You were _what_?”

“Ambushed,” Jaemin repeated. “We’re all right, no one got bitten. We ended up losing practically all our supplies, so that was a bit inconvenient.”

“Inconvenient isn’t exactly the word I’d use for your situation,” Jeno said dryly.

“We’re alive,” Jaemin pointed out.

“That’s a really low bar,” Jeno said flatly, “Did you tell Jisung about this?”

Jaemin picked at his fingernails. “Yeah, but I don’t think he connected the dots yet. Chenle might if you do.”

Jeno hummed in thought. “I won’t be surprised if he already did and is pretending not to,” Jeno said, a little ruefully. “But I’m going to choose to be stubbornly optimistic.”

“That’s one problem on hold at least,” Jaemin drew his knees to his chest. He was probably wasting more battery than he ought to with this call, talking about nothing particularly substantial. But he couldn’t bring himself to hang up, to cut off the link with Jeno. “I have a feeling that this is going to be harder to explain to them than the first time around,” Jaemin said moodily. “I’m not looking forward to it.”

“Tell me about it,” Jeno groaned. “Killing zombies is one thing, but sick humans? I can just imagine the look on Chenle’s face.” There was a short pause, “And you?”

“The usual,” Jaemin replied. He gnawed on his lips, hesitating. “Just. Miss you.”

“Me too, Jaem,” Jeno said softly. Jaemin could hear the smile in his voice. “Me too.”

40:08:17

Jaemin leaned over the Taeyong’s shoulder, squinting at the screen with narrowed eyes. Letters ran across the screen, a random jumble of four recurring alphabets and numbers that made up the genetic code of the virus. “Yes, I can’t remember it perfectly but this looks like it,” he muttered haltingly, engrossed in scanning the DNA sequence and matching it to the hundreds he had went over with Jeno. “Could you email this to Jeno? Or, wait no, I’ll get Jeno to email his stuff over. We worked out the conserved sequences too and we can align it to yours to see if we’re on the same page.”

Behind him, Jisung looked utterly lost. He was obviously pretending not to, if the occasional hums and ‘ah’ sounds he made were anything to go by. But Jaemin had been with him long enough to recognize the glazed quality of his eyes when he couldn’t quite follow or was struggling to process something from ten minutes ago.

Taeyong turned around in his chair, eyebrows pulled into a frown. Like Jisung, his eyes were glazed over, though for a very different reason. “You’ve been working with S1, haven’t you? I’m not too sure how similar S1 is to S2, but I’m guessing the conserved regions would be the same.”

Donghyuck was draped over a chair, long legs dangling off the arm rests. He was twirling a pen between his fingers, eyes closed. To anyone else, it might look like he wasn’t paying attention, but Jaemin knew him better than that.

“If we create a vaccine against the S2 virus, wouldn’t it be ineffective against S1?” Jisung blurted.

Taeyong glanced at Jisung, clearly remembering his presence only now. He smiled at Jisung fondly, looking rather much like a parent watching their child learn the alphabet. “That’s why we take the conserved regions, see?” he explained patiently. “It’s okay if S1 and S2 are different, or even if S3, 4 and 5 emerges. If we find parts in their virus common to all strains of this virus, we can develop vaccines that target _this_ part.”

Jisung bit his lip. “How do vaccines work again?” he asked weakly.

Donghyuck snorted a laugh.

Taeyong blinked, thrown off. “Um,” he fumbled. Jaemin could practically hear his brain whirring as it struggled to condense his entire expertise into bite sized versions. “Vaccines are the tutorials to your actual gameplay,” Jaemin intervened, well-used to dumbing down things. “You start off with something easy to kill, like a dead or weak virus. Then you practice killing it or develop ammo such as antibodies. The antibodies are like nets or poison, they tangle up or kill the virus. That way, when the virus – or anything that looks like it – enters again, you’re ready to kill it before it can get very far.”

“Right. Battleground,” Jisung said aloud to himself. “We recognize viruses through the episode, no, antidote – ”

“Epitope,” Taeyong corrected. “Epitopes are tags on the virus surface. It’s like you teaching your body to kill someone who isn’t wearing your team colour,” he tacked on, clumsily attempting to explain.

Donghyuck swung off the chair, sauntering towards them. “Great,” he said briskly, “Now we just have to figure out how to produce a weak virus or construct an epitope, both of which require massive manpower or resources,” he said pointedly.

Taeyong deflated. “Yeah,” he said, sounding so gloomy Jaemin wanted to hit Donghyuck, which was nothing out of the usual. “Unless we find someone with natural immunity who we can obtain the antibodies from and study it, this is going to take forever.”

“But what if the virus becomes resistant to the vaccine?”

Jaemin pinched the bridge of his nose. Donghyuck pivoted on his heel mid-stride, heading back to the chair. “Wake me up when the Khan Academy session is over.”

“Viruses don’t get resistant to vaccines,” Taeyong said, looking pained. “They get resistant to drugs.”

“Drugs. Yes,” Jisung said awkwardly, the tips of his ears turning red. “I knew that. Slip of the tongue.”

“Jisungie gets confused when things are too similar,” Donghyuck inserted sardonically, “Like having two entirely different ways to kill viruses.”

Jisung rounded on him furiously, like Jaemin predicted he would. “That’s because we’ve been talking about drug resistant viruses for the past few months!” he snapped, “I haven’t cleared my mental cache!”

Taeyong frowned, “What drug resistance?”

“We’ve been treating S1 with a drug,” Jaemin said, “It stopped working recently so we theorized that it developed drug resistance.”

Jaemin tugged a little packet out of his pocket, handing it over to Taeyong. The older man held it up to his eye, scrutinizing it. “Injunnie takes this for his chronic migraines,” Donghyuck put in, “We found that it protected against infection when taken prophylactically, and within a certain time limit when used therapeutically.” 

“There can’t be drug resistance.”

Three pairs of eyes turned to the youngest. Jisung’s eyes were wide, looking surprised at himself. “You told me that, didn’t you? Viruses develop resistance against drugs that kill them, or stop them at least, but Renjun’s drug isn’t an antiviral. It doesn’t even interact with the virus, it just blocks the – the satellite thingies – receptors – in his brain.” He trailed off, reaching the end of his lightbulb moment. His gaze sought Jaemin’s desperately, begging for reassurance.

Jaemin wasn’t in the mood to do that. He felt like he just got hit over the head. Donghyuck’s mouth had fallen open, eyes wide and looking just as shell-shocked. Jisung looked between the two of them uneasily. “Did I get it wrong?” he asked, immediately doubting himself as the silence wore on. “I mixed up things again, didn’t I?”

“No,” Donghyuck breathed out, “You’re right. Jaemin…we’re fucking idiots.”

Jaemin buried his face in his hands, fighting the urge to scream. What the hell was wrong with him? They’ve been doing this for _months_ and it took him one high schooler to figure out why he kept feeling something was off every time he talked about drug resistance?

“It’s alright,” Taeyong said hurriedly, looking rather embarrassed for them. “We forget things sometimes. I forget where I put my phone all the time,” he said, as though that was of a similar magnitude to the sheer stupidity that Jaemin was.

“Oh, am I right?” Jisung asked happily, sounding surprised but pleased. “Cool!”

Donghyuck sat up in his chair, eyes bright and alert, already getting over his mortification for something far more pressing. “If it isn’t a drug resistant strain, then this strain mutated to find another way to infect,” he deduced.

Jaemin’s mind was racing, flipping through memories, putting the pieces together. The original virus mutated, but how? “Taeyong, where did you first find S2?”

“That’s a bit hard to answer,” Taeyong replied uncertainly. “I started hearing about people spontaneously turning in the countryside a while back. At first I assumed that it was an accidental contamination but it happened more and more.” He walked over to the table, picking up his forgotten cup of lukewarm tea. “I randomly sampled from various places and sequenced the virus. It turned out to be a mix of S1 and S2, so while I can’t quite say where the first sample came from, I’d say it’s likely that it originated from the countryside.”

“There’s a lot of zombies lying around there,” Jisung put in, conjuring a chocolate bar and unwrapping it. He chomped off half of it in one bite. “I told you guys about it, remember? There was one lying around in that house that I was hiding in the night we got attacked. Maybe the virus mutated in one of them.”

“That doesn’t make sense,” Jaemin insisted. “The virus can’t pop up into existence from nothing.”

“The zombies were rotting,” Jisung pointed out. “Like, maggots in the heads kind of gross. My mom always said that rotting stuff are full of germs.”

“She was probably trying to stop you from eating expired food,” Donghyuck said dryly.

“That was _one_ time.”

“It was not and you know it.”

“It would still need a reservoir of some sort to mutate,” Jaemin continued, ignoring their growing bickering. “An animal, some kind of host for it to replicate in. There was no way it could replicate in a dead zombie.”

Taeyong took off his glasses and polished them, the motion achingly familiar. With his glasses off, he was ridiculously handsome. Jaemin could grudgingly understand Jisung’s fascination with him. “Well, if birds ate maggots out of zombie brains, it might have ingested viruses too. I wouldn’t be surprised if the viruses mutated within the birds,” he said thoughtfully, ignoring the commotion in the background too. “Some of the food supply comes from the countryside, doesn’t it? Perhaps the bird droppings contaminated the supply.” Taeyong put his glasses back on, smiling at them as though he hadn’t just casually put together something that they’ve been cracking their heads over for months. 

The bickering ceased. Jaemin stared at Taeyong mutely. The older man’s smile faltered, looking between the three of them timidly. “I mean,” he stuttered, “It’s just a guess. You probably know better than me. I’m not very smart, you see,” he said apologetically, unaware of how absurd he sounded.

Jaemin’s eye twitched. He’s starting to see the resemblance between him and Donghyuck now.

Jaemin wanted to hit him.


	7. 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is a double update!! There's still an epilogue after this, so no it's not the end yet.
> 
> Also, as usual, I'll post a detailed explanation of everything at the end together with the epilogue. You can choose to wait for the explanation and read it before going into the chapter, but whatever works for you :)

40:22:15

A soft wind blew, icy cold, but not as painful as the one in Seoul. He exhaled, his breath puffing out in front of him. He’d think that the days of endless cycling would have been more than enough fresh air for him but here he is, barely a day in and already seeking out the rooftop for fresh air and solitude.

Busan was a familiar place to Jaemin. When he was younger, he had lived in the quiet, serene town of Jeonju with his parents. Every other weekend, they would drive over to Busan to visit his grandparents. He was fascinated with the lilting, wave-like tenor of the Busan _satoori_ and the warm, welcoming attitude of the people. Later on, he moved to Seoul where the coldness of the city slowly shed him of his accent and everything that came with it.

Jaemin couldn’t remember the last time he came to Busan, much less the last time he met his grandparents in person. He could take the Infected, the hunger, the fear and uncertainty of knowing whether tomorrow would come, even the burden of working himself to death. The one thing that destroyed him from the inside every, single day was the regret for everything not done.

What the hell was he even doing when his grandparents died? His parents? Was that missed call their last desperate attempt to reach their only child? What could they have said, that they were attacked, or they were bitten, or they were on the run, or simply to check up on Jaemin, not knowing that they wouldn’t get a chance to again? What was Jaemin _doing_ , what could he have done better, what if –

“It’s cold outside,” Taeyong said mildly, emerging onto the rooftop. He didn’t look the slightest bit surprised to find Jaemin here. “Still not as cold as Seoul, I’d reckon.”

Jaemin silently bid farewell to his peace. Taeyong was quiet enough, his presence would be unintrusive enough that Jaemin might still be able to recharge himself even with another person around. “The ‘cold city guy’ term originated from somewhere and it certainly isn’t in Busan,” Jaemin replied wryly in response.

Taeyong laughed, a sound like squeaky windshield wipers. “Have you been to Busan?” Taeyong’s voice was just barely above a whisper.

“Yes,” Jaemin answered shortly. “Have you lived here all your life?” he asked as an afterthought, realizing how rude he sounded a beat too late.

“I was born in Seoul,” Taeyong answered, either not minding or not noticing. “Donghyuck was too, until he moved to Jeju about the time I started high school in Busan.”

Jaemin glanced at him in surprise. Under the cover of darkness, Taeyong’s expression was unreadable, the angled planes of his face shrouded in shadows. “That’s a pretty big move,” he said cautiously.

Taeyong shrugged, an awkward, uncomfortable movement. “I had some trouble in middle school,” he said quietly.

Jaemin looked ahead, not needing to ask further. “Donghyuck’s a good kid,” Taeyong said, changing the subject. He sounded exactly like Jeno when he was trying to convince Renjun not to kick them all out at the beginning. “He just gets a bit mouthy sometimes.”

Jaemin rolled his eyes but held his tongue, unwilling to argue with an elder about something so mundane. “You must have spent a lot of time with him,” Jaemin said neutrally.

“He’s always been the most adorable child,” Taeyong said, practically melting on the spot. “He had the chubbiest cheeks and he wrote me little cards whenever he came to Busan for the holidays – Jeju has the most dreadful winters, and Donghyuck’s sisters didn’t like the tan they got from the summers.”

“No wonder my ears were itching,” Donghyuck grumbled, appearing on cue at the mention of him and destroying the last remnants of hope Jaemin had for some peace. “Why are you guys here? It’s freezing.” Despite his words, he joined them at the edge of the roof. He dug a hand into his pocket, pulling out a packet of cigarettes and lighting one up. The flame flickered in the darkness momentarily and the end of the cigarette glowed as he inhaled.

“I told you to drop that habit,” Taeyong said disapprovingly. In response, Donghyuck proffered a stick.

“Wanna share, hyung?” he offered generously, unbelievable in the way only Donghyuck could be. 

“No!” Taeyong recoiled, looking for all the world like he was the younger one instead. Jaemin reached over and plucked it from his fingers, leaning over to let Donghyuck light him. Donghyuck grinned at him knowingly.

“Stressed, Jaeminnie?”

“That’s my usual state,” Jaemin countered, exhaling. The smoke drifted up lazily, curling before it vanished, blown away by a light breeze.

The door to the rooftop clicked softly as it swung open. The three of them turned, silently watching from the darkness as a fourth figure emerged. The tall, lanky shadow loped over to the edge of the roof some distance from them, not having noticed their presence. There was a telltale clicking and, to Jaemin’s astonishment and outrage, an orange glow lit up.

“Park Jisung!” he barked, “What the hell do you think you’re doing?”

“Jesus _fuck_ ,” Jisung startled badly, dropping the cigarette and lighter to the ground in a clatter. He whirled around, hand clutching at his chest. “What are you doing there in the dark?” he demanded indignantly, “I almost got a heart attack!”

Jaemin stalked over with quick strides. Jisung flinched at his approach, glancing momentarily over the lip of the wall as though considering jumping off. Jaemin snatched the lit cigarette from his fingers and squashed it under his foot with grim satisfaction. “That would do you some good,” he said ominously, “Who taught you to smoke?”

Jisung’s eyes darted to the side involuntarily, betraying him.

Jaemin turned around slowly, eyes narrowed. His gaze found Donghyuck instantly, who avoided his gaze, pretending to exhale upwards into the sky. Taeyong hit him in the stomach and he choked, almost swallowing the cigarette.

“It’s a leftover habit from high school,” Jisung clarified quickly, sensing Donghyuck’s impending doom. “You know what it’s like,” he tried to laugh it off. “Everyone sneaks off for the occasional smoke or drink when they’re in high school. It’s a social bonding activity!”

A furious stream of choice words reared up in Jaemin at that. He fought them back with some difficulty. “I suppose you came up to bond with us then?” he said sarcastically.

“Well, since you are all here – ”

“No.”

Jisung deflated.

Gritting his teeth, Jaemin held out his hand. Jisung looked up, mutiny clear in his eyes. Jaemin didn’t know what he saw, but he gave in almost immediately, dropping the packet of cigarettes into his palm. “Goodnight,” Jisung said, bowing to them and retreating swiftly.

40:23:37

Jisung trudged back, mourning the loss of his cigarettes. He wasn’t addicted or anything, it was like what he told Jaemin, just a bad habit he kept going back to like a tick. All day he had sat by listening to the three scientists discuss among themselves, looking progressively gloomier with every dead end they hit.

Whatever it was they were trying to formulate, it was much too complex for them to handle at their current state. They had neither the time nor resources and with the drug rendered useless, the prospect of humanity being wiped out was starting to feel like a looming shadow over their shoulder. Jisung felt like an idiot sitting there passively the whole time, unable to contribute anything while feeding off the mounting stress from the three.

“Someone who’s naturally immune, huh?” Jisung muttered to himself, his steps slowing down as he thought. If finding a vaccine was difficult, finding someone with natural immunity, or someone who had recovered from the disease was practically impossible.

Has there even been anyone who recovered from a bite?

Jisung tripped, falling halfway down the stairs.

His eyes were wide as he gazed at nothing, heart pounding. Jisung’s muscles unfroze and he scrambled up clumsily, running up the stairs. “Jaemin!” he yelled.

40:23:54

Jaemin looked less than pleased to see Jisung again. “It’s almost midnight,” he scolded, already starting to nag.

“Can you test my blood for antibodies?” Jisung said in a rush.

“What?” Jaemin asked, baffled.

Jisung swallowed, forcing himself to calm down. “Remember that day that we got attacked? I was given the drug almost immediately, sealing off the mode of entry for the virus. Wouldn’t that mean that the virus was rendered non-infectious? Could that count as a vaccine?”

Jaemin’s eyebrows shot up. “That’s an interesting point,” he said slowly, “But no, I don’t think so. Your exposure to the virus was limited. It might not be sufficient to make you immune.”

Jisung bit his lip, disappointed. A stray memory suddenly floated into his head, fuzzy around the edges. _“That can’t be right,” Jeno refuted, putting down his biscuits before he even took a bite. “No one is immune.”_

_“That’s what I thought,” Donghyuck replied, the smile finally dropping away to reveal something more serious. “But he got bitten a few months ago and when he didn’t turn, I suspected that there might be something in his blood that was stopping the change.”_

Renjun.

“Renjun,” Donghyuck said aloud the same time as him. His face was pale at the realization. He clutched Jaemin’s arm, “Renjun is immune,” he whispered. Donghyuck stared at Jaemin, excitement wild in his eyes, “The very first time he got attacked, it was practically a vaccine. Because the virus was non-infectious in his body.”

The frown of confusion on Jaemin’s forehead smoothed out. “Oh,” he breathed. “And he got attacked twice.”

“I hate to say this,” Taeyong said hesitantly, voice so quiet and tentative it was barely audible, “But this is just a hypothetical scenario, isn’t it? Do you have evidence for this?”

Jisung grabbed Jaemin’s other arm, shaking it a little. “Donghyuck was screening drugs against Renjun’s blood,” he said, slurring his words in his haste, “We thought that it was the drugs in his blood that was killing the viruses, but that isn’t right.” Jisung shook his arm again, more urgently. “Renjun’s drug isn’t an anti-viral, it can’t kill the virus! There was something else in his blood killing the virus!”

“Neutralizing antibodies,” Jaemin raised his hands to rub his temples, dragging Jisung’s and Donghyuck’s arms along. “In a live host, the drug protects against the disease. But within a cell, it can’t do anything. That was why my experiments kept contradicting each other these past few months.” He sighed explosively, arms dropping to his side, “And here I was repeating experiments non-stop thinking that I made a mistake somewhere. What a massive waste of resources.”

Donghyuck released his arm and hit him, “Shut up! Do you know what this means?”

Jaemin stared at him expressionlessly for a moment. Then, a slow smile spread across his face, blindingly bright and so pretty Jisung felt his breath catch in his throat for a moment involuntarily. Donghyuck clearly thought the same, if his rapid blinking was anything to go by. 

“Could you show me your data?” some of the dullness lifted from Taeyong’s face and he was starting to smile a little too. “Just to go over and see if anything was missed, but from what you guys are saying it sounds like a decent chance. So,” he put his hands on his hips expectantly, “where’s this Renjun guy?”

41:00:26

“I can’t wait to see how Renjun reacts to this,” Donghyuck said gleefully, bounding over to Jisung and digging through his pockets. “Injunnie _hates_ exercise.”

Jisung squirmed in discomfort, shoving his hand into his pocket for his phone the same time that Donghyuck retreated, phone already in hand. “Your hands are so hot,” Jisung commented.

“That’s because _I’m_ hot,” Donghyuck replied cheekily, waiting for the call to connect.

“Then stop stealing my hot packs,” Jisung snapped half-heartedly. Donghyuck winked at him, turning away with a boisterous greeting into the phone.

“Is he ever quiet?” Jaemin asked in resignation, folding his arms and watching Donghyuck with a weary gaze. Jisung started to reply before petering off to a massive yawn. Jaemin caught the action and frowned. “Off to bed,” he said in a tone that brooked no argument, pushing Jisung gently towards the stairs.

“Carry me,” Jisung yawned again, draping himself over Jaemin’s back.

“I’ll drop you down the stairs,” Jaemin threatened but made no move to throw him off, letting Jisung half-walk, half-lean against him as they headed back to their rooms. “You’re such a baby when you’re tired,” Jaemin said gruffly, but his tone was fond.

“Mmhm,” Jisung agreed drowsily. “Always have been.” He was silent for a moment, the words heavy on his tongue as he debated whether to say them or not. “I had an older brother,” he confessed quietly in the end. “He usually went out to get the food and stuff at the beginning – alone, because he said that I was too young to go. Then one day he just didn’t come back. Same thing with mom.” He stopped abruptly, unable and unwilling to say anything more, retreating into himself before he could unpack that box of wound-up emotions.

Maybe things would be different if he had been older, if he had been stronger, if he had gone out with his brother, or with his mother when she went to look for him. Maybe he would know what happened, or to stop what happened, if only he had been able to do something.

Jaemin didn’t answer for a while. A hand was suddenly on his head, running through his hair gently. When he spoke, his voice was low, muted and aloof but the kindest Jisung ever heard him. “Well, you have four now.”

Jisung pressed his face against Jaemin’s shoulder. A lot of things lay in the unsaid, more so for someone as reserved as Jaemin, who was silent in his demonstrations. “That’s right,” he said, his words so muffled by Jaemin’s sweater that it was barely audible. But still the words reverberated against Jaemin’s body. “Hyung.”

Jisung kept his burning eyes on the ground as they walked, breathing slowly through the phantom ache in his chest. Don’t look back and kill yourself with regret, don’t look forward and kill yourself with hope.

Jisung reached out for Jaemin’s hand, enveloping the cold hand with his and let go, a long, slow breath.

Keep your eyes down and walk, and live among the living.

43:11:12

“Here, hold this and don’t move,” Donghyuck shoved a bunch of test tubes to Jisung. Jisung took them, slotting them between his fingers with a sense of satisfaction when he fitted sixteen into one hand.

“I charge by the minute,” Jisung said primly, keeping obediently still as Donghyuck’s designated test tube rack.

“Works for me,” Donghyuck said cheerfully, hands moving over the benchtop in swift, precise motions as he uncapped tubes one-handed and added a cocktail of reagents in without faltering. “I don’t even need a minute – ”

His hand spasmed suddenly, dropping the tube. “Fuck,” he swore, picking it up quickly before the liquid started spilling out.

“Don’t jinx yourself,” Jisung smirked.

Donghyuck didn’t answer and stared at the tube blankly. “What have I added?” he muttered to himself.

Jisung blinked, not able to believe what he just heard for a second. For all his mischief, Donghyuck was an excellent scientist. He never faltered while he was working, especially not for something as simple as this. “You’ve added everything,” he said slowly, “You just need to put it into the PCR machine now.”

“Right, right,” Donghyuck said distractedly, setting the tube down. There was a faint tremor on his hands.

Jisung didn’t move as Donghyuck brushed past him. “I’ll put them into the fridge,” Jisung said, walking over to where Donghyuck was setting the tubes into the machine. His eyes drifted to his hairline, still damp from his morning shower from hours ago. “Join us for lunch when you’re done,” Jisung squeezed his shoulder as he left.

Jisung’s heart was thumping in his chest, starting a deep trembling from within. His hand burned, still retaining the vestiges of heat from Donghyuck’s unusually warm shoulder.

43:19:12

Jisung knocked on the door, pushing it open with a hip as he entered. “Jaemin missed you at dinner,” he said, deliberately casual as he sat down the bowl of stew. The room was in total darkness, Jisung would have thought that the room was empty if he hadn’t seen Donghyuck’s figure huddled at the edge of the bed.

“I thought I’d be nice and give him a break,” Donghyuck said, voice subdued and nothing like his usual. But that was probably a side effect from the fever.

Jisung took a seat on the bed. There was a strange air around them, taut with unspoken words and a mutual understanding.

“The vegetables…” Jisung spoke haltingly.

“Was not your fault,” Donghyuck cut him off, some of his characteristic vigor returning. “There was no way for any of us to know.”

Jisung didn’t argue, knowing the ineffectuality of it. Still, his insides burned with agitation, anger and frustration at himself. “They’re coming,” his hands tangled in the sheets. “Can you hold on until then?”

Donghyuck took a measured breath, “Symptom onset is approximately six days post infection,” he said, voice cool and methodical. “The low viral load from the contaminated food could be a reason for the extended duration. If we refer to previous data, clinical severity might cross the threshold by day ten, which is four days from now.”

Jisung swallowed.

“They set out two days ago,” Donghyuck continued, still in that unnaturally cool voice, “which makes their estimated time of arrival to be about eight days from today.” He paused to let the statement sink in, together with the implications. “They would be four days too late.”

“Donghyuck, hyung,” Jisung started, pleading. The creeping sense of dread that had been growing in him since he realized what happened turned into full-blown horror and desperation. One less four, and then there were three. Jisung shook his head wildly, unable to bear the mere thought of that. “There’s got to be a way, let’s ask Jaemin, or Taeyong!”

“There isn’t any,” Donghyuck said, carefully as though to a spooked animal, as though _Jisung_ was the one who had to be taken care of. “We lost the drugs during the ambush, that single one Jaemin has isn’t going to be enough. Renjun wouldn’t be here in time – and we don’t know for sure if it really will work – and nothing else we know can do any good.”

Jisung jumped up, fists clenched. “Don’t say that,” he growled, throat tight. “There has to be a way.”

“I’m a scientist, Jisungie,” Donghyuck said tiredly, “Do you think I haven’t already considered every angle?”

Jisung gripped the table edge, accidentally knocking over the bowl of stew. “Shit,” he cursed, his voice wavering and devoid of strength. He righted the bowl, backing away to the light switch, “Don’t get up, I’ll clean it up.”

“Don’t – ”

Donghyuck turned away, cowering from the light. In that split second, Jisung caught sight of red eyes and the glint of his face and understood immediately why Donghyuck kept the lights off. “Don’t,” he repeated lowly as Jisung approached him shakily.

Jisung let himself fall to the bed heavily next to Donghyuck, hand coming up to clutch at his sweater, loosely caging him in. Donghyuck had never been small, but here between Jisung’s arms, he looked small enough to be lost.

“If I turn, can you…?” Donghyuck didn’t finish his question. When Jisung didn’t answer, he sighed, reaching up to pat his head. “What am I doing, asking this of you,” he murmured to himself. He lifted his arms to hug Jisung lightly. “It’s alright, Jisungie,” he cooed. “Don’t cry. Hyung will feel bad if you do.”

Something twisted painfully in Jisung’s chest. It was a familiar ache, the ache of futility, that awful sense that no matter how tight Jisung held on, something precious was slowly slipping out of his grasp.

43:23:47

Jisung sat in the dimly lit desk, twirling a pen between his fingers as he thought. There was almost a feeling of déjà vu about this moment, from a time that felt so short and yet so long ago. He frowned down at the notebook covered with his scribbles. If he translated Jaemin’s signature academic way of going around in circles, he basically said that being infected once wasn’t enough to make him immune. So the most logical step would be to get himself infected a second time.

Hypothetically, Jisung could calculate the dosage he needs based on the months of work he did as Jaemin’s assistant and find exactly what he needs in the lab freezer. There isn’t anyone to be his impulse control now and it would be a simple matter of simply walking over.

Hypothetically, if it works, he could transfer his antibodies to Donghyuck to cure him.

Jisung’s leg jiggled restlessly under the table. If things go well, Donghyuck could be saved. If they don’t, they’re going to have not one, but two, Infected roaming around this building. Jisung doesn’t even want to imagine how Jaemin can deal with that. 

But at this point, Jisung was more than ready to risk it. Jisung sighed, putting the pencil down and rubbing his face. He sat there for a while, hearing nothing but his own breathing before getting up and walking into the lab. Maybe he should write a note or something, in case things really go south and someone should inform Jaemin how and when they fucked it all up. After a moment’s consideration, he dug his phone out of his pocket, hitting a speed dial. “Donghyuck’s turning,” he said as soon as the call connected. “I need your help.”

44:12:10

“Where the hell did my virus stocks go?” Jaemin demanded angrily. “I’m missing half a box of them!”

Jisung shifted uncomfortably, watching Jaemin tear into Donghyuck a little guiltily. Not now, not yet. His fist clenched and unclenched as he sent a silent prayer for his immune cells to _hurry the fuck up._

45:19:29

Donghyuck couldn’t get out of bed.

“Get out of here,” Donghyuck rasped, fingers curled into claws as he spasmed and twitched in bed. His eyes were bloodshot, wild and feverish, barely holding onto coherency. “Bring me a knife now.”

Jisung shook his head. Damn, this was way too soon, it’s only been two days, he doesn’t know if it’s enough time. But he has no choice, it has to be done _now_. “I injected – ” he broke off at the sound of footsteps, the loud, rapid, strides a premonition of the approaching presence.

The door slammed open. There was a sharp intake of breath. For a few moments there was only the sound of quick, shallow breathing from Donghyuck.

Jaemin’s face was frozen, transfixed on Donghyuck with a mixture of horror and disbelief. “What happened?”

Donghyuck started to answer but groaned instead, eyebrows furrowing as he curled up on himself in pain. “Knife, Jisung,” he said weakly, “And don’t tell Taeyong, he’ll flip.”

Jisung flinched as Jaemin turned to him desperately, eyes begging for an explanation. The words died out in his throat at his expression. He had never seen Jaemin look so wretched. “Did you know?” he whispered, “How long have you been keeping this from me?” his voice rose.

Jisung reached out and gripped Jaemin’s wrist. “Jaemin, listen to me,” he said urgently. “I need you to take my serum and inject it into Donghyuck. No, listen!” he snapped before Jaemin could interrupt him. “I infected myself with your virus stocks the other day. There might not be enough but whatever, take as much as I can possibly give. If we don’t try this, Donghyuck will turn.”

“You what? You fucking idiot!” Jaemin exploded, wrenching his wrist away. His anger was leaping up level after level alarmingly fast. “Why would you do that? You could have died! Or turned! And it would have been for nothing because you’re immune to S1, if Donghyuck is infected with S2 this would kill him instead!”

“Jaemin, I’m a dying man either way,” Donghyuck said dryly. “Lay off the kid.”

Jaemin looked livid. “I’m going to kill the both of you,” he snarled, glaring at the both of them in turn. “Why didn’t you tell me?” Underneath the anger, Jisung detected a note of hurt.

“There’s nothing I can’t do that you can, Jaeminnie,” Donghyuck exhaled. “It would just make things harder.”

There was a protracted silence as Jaemin stared at Donghyuck who refused to look at him. The line of Jaemin’s jaw was so strained he almost looked like he would break apart. The tension was broken by his phone buzzing. Jisung fumbled in his pocket and swiped to pick up the call. “Park Jisung!” Jisung flinched at the volume, holding the phone away. Why was everyone so insistent on calling him by his full name? At this point it set off a Pavlov’s reaction in him. “What’s the address of the place again?”

“Where are you?” he whispered, avoiding their curious gazes, “It’s at Busan National University station,” he said, feeling stupid immediately after saying it.

“That’s helpful,” Renjun deadpanned.

Jaemin snatched the phone from his hands, setting it on speaker. “Can you pass the phone to Jaemin?”

“I’m here,” Jaemin said.

“How do I get to where you guys are?” Renjun repeated the question. There was a loud rumble in the background.

Jaemin stared at the phone, confusion replacing anger. “Are you…are you on a bike?” he asked incredulously.

“Yeah, because fuck bicycles,” Renjun replied flippantly.

Jaemin blinked rapidly. “How do you not have a million Infected running after you?”

“They can’t catch you if they can’t catch up,” Renjun said smugly. “I would have come with Jeno and Chenle if Donghyuck isn’t being a loser, but what can you do.”

Jisung’s stomach twisted in on itself. By the look on Jaemin’s face, he thought the same. Having the two of them come on bicycles right behind Renjun didn’t sound like the best idea, but Jisung had been expecting Renjun to cycle faster or something, not steal a fucking dirt bike. “Anyway,” Renjun continued, “It’s too dangerous to ride this bike into the city, if you give me the exact location I can figure out the rest.”

“What was that?” Donghyuck demanded weakly when the call ended. “What did you tell Renjun?”

Jisung squirmed internally, wanting nothing more than for the conversation to end and for them to take their attention off him. Jaemin was enough, he really, really doesn’t want to add an angry Donghyuck to the list. “I told Renjun about you,” he said reluctantly. “He was my backup plan in case my blood couldn’t save you.”

“Why did you do that?” Donghyuck tried to, presumably, yell, but he only managed a weak rasping. “Did you hear him? Now that idiot’s tearing through Zombieland like he’s racing for pink slips! He’ll kill himself!”

“And if he comes and finds out we kept this from him he’ll kill _all_ of us!” Jisung retorted, which was partially true. Jisung can never erase that image of tiny Renjun swinging the spiked machete like he was playing baseball with zombie heads. 

Jaemin was glaring at him. He stabbed a finger at Jisung threateningly. “You,” he announced with the grimness of a death sentence, “are going to get it from me after this.” He turned to Donghyuck, “And you.” Donghyuck flinched imperceptibly, but he still glared back at Jaemin, out of spite, probably. “Just wait.”

46:00:02

Renjun arrived like a whirlwind.

He slammed the door open, the sound of his heavy boots echoing as he stomped down the corridor towards them. “There he is,” Donghyuck said with a half-smile just as the door to his room flew open and Renjun swept in.

Renjun stood in the doorway, hair dripping water onto his leather jacket and presence twice his size. “There _you_ are,” he said darkly, zeroing in on Donghyuck immediately. He stalked over to Donghyuck’s bedside and looked down at him. “You’re a moron,” he announced with savage satisfaction. His hand brushed over Donghyuck’s hair briefly, betraying him.

“Missed you too, Injunnie,” Donghyuck replied sarcastically. He broke off into a violent spasm, jerking at his restraints. Renjun exchanged a look with Jaemin and without another word, they left the room.

Jisung followed behind as Renjun and Jaemin strode briskly into the lab. Taeyong hurried over to them, looking frazzled. “How’s Donghyuck?” he demanded, or as close to demanding he can get. His eyes darted to Renjun uncertainly, faint suspicion still lingering.

Jisung felt a little bad for him. Jaemin certainly wasn’t gentle on the poor man when he informed him, with brutal efficiency, that his cousin was days away from turning and that they were about to perform a madman’s experiment of blood transfusion from a stranger outracing zombies on a bike.

“He’s getting worse,” Jaemin answered without the slightest filter.

Taeyong blanched. “That doesn’t sound good,” he said faintly.

“He’s tied to the bed,” Renjun added helpfully, joining Jaemin for contestants for the worst bedside manner. “You don’t have to worry, he won’t get loose easily,” he continued kindly, either unaware or indifferent to their relation. Taeyong pressed his lips together, turning on his heel and walking out the lab towards Donghyuck’s room.

“Where’s Jeno and Chenle?” Jaemin asked after seating Renjun on a chair. He swabbed the crease in Renjun’s elbow with alcohol, rummaging through a plastic box and prepping a needle.

“I checked up on them yesterday,” Renjun said, clenching and unclenching his fist to make the vein pop. “They’re alright, they’re travelling by night to avoid detection.”

“Well, let’s hope that it works,” Jaemin murmured, although it wasn’t clear what he was referring to.

Renjun flinched as the needle went in clumsily. “You’ve never done this before, have you?” Renjun said accusingly.

“Only on mice tails,” Jaemin replied, having the decency to sound a little sheepish. Renjun gave him a flat look.

Dark blood flowed through the clear tube into a blood bag as Renjun squeezed a stress ball, slowly pumping in blood. Jisung reached out and touched the bag, feeling the warmth with a sense of wonder. “How much blood are we looking at?” Renjun asked.

Jaemin was watching with crossed arms, “A single bag is the standard for blood donation,” he said. “With the serum only, the volume will be half of that.”

“Let’s go for two then,” Renjun said immediately.

“Let’s try for one and see if someone dies first,” Jaemin said bitingly.

“Go big or go home,” Renjun hissed.

Jaemin rolled his eyes, not deigning to reply as he picked up the bag and tilted it from side to side as he waited. “Will it work?” Jisung asked anxiously, picking at his nails.

“In theory,” Jaemin answered, voice so callous it almost sounded indifferent. But Jisung could see the tense lines around his mouth, his careful eye on Renjun and the way he stared fixatedly at the bag of blood as though trying to give himself something to focus on.

“It better work, Na Jaemin,” Renjun said, the tremble of his voice just barely noticeable. Jaemin didn’t react, he simply continued tilting the bag from side to side. Only the tight line of his jaw showed that he heard Renjun at all.

Jisung’s phone buzzed in his pocket. “Oh,” he said, pulling out his phone in puzzlement. “It’s Chenle.” That’s odd, Chenle usually preferred texts over calls, something about emojis being able to express himself better. “Hello?”

There was no answer, only the sound of heavy breathing. “Hello?” he repeated, more loudly. A loud growl exploded through the phone. Jisung’s blood ran cold.

Jisung stood up shakily. “Chenle,” he said into the phone just as the line went dead. He stared down at the battered phone with unseeing eyes.

“What happened?” Jaemin demanded, catching onto Jisung’s expression immediately. 

Jisung looked up at them dazedly. There was a white haze of wordless panic and fear clouding his mind, his muscles tensed to run, but through that he registered the scene before him, at Renjun sitting on a chair twice his size, the tube trailing down into the heavy bag of blood, an empty blood bag in his hands, at Jaemin next to him, hollow-cheeked and brittle with exhaustion and hunger. Jisung registered all of that within a split second and made his decision.

“Butt call,” he lied smoothly, pocketing the phone. He pretended to yawn, rubbing his eyes to avoid their sharp gazes. He motioned vaguely at the open door, “I’m going to take a nap. Wake me up if you need anything.”

46:02:49

The rain pattered down on the asphalt, muffling the sound of the car quietly moving through the streets. “Oh, fuck,” Jisung cursed, almost crashing into a broken guardrail. He stomped on the brake, lurching forward at the abrupt stop. He squinted, barely able to see anything through the rain and darkness.

Chenle’s location blinked up at him from the phone, coming from within a crumbling building. The darkened windows were broken, torn banners and signages hanging limply, the faded colours contrasting with the grey concrete. He exited the car, water splashed as he stepped heavily into a puddle. Jisung barely took notice of it, moving towards the building cautiously and hand brushing over the knives he stashed all over himself.

It wasn’t as hard as he thought it would be to drive a car. Probably the only difficult thing was finding the keys, but Taeyong was about as organized as Jaemin, if not more, and it was laying on his desk in the room as though waiting for Jisung. He had half-considered asking Taeyong to come along with him, but he was unlikely to keep it a secret from Jaemin and Renjun, and even more likely to join them on keeping him at the base while they went out themselves, the exact thing he was trying to avoid. Objectively speaking, he was the youngest and fittest, but the three of them were going to fixate on the first bit.

The streets were oddly empty, as empty as the mountain roads they took when they were coming down to Busan. Jisung felt the goosebumps rise along his arms as he crept towards the entrance of the building. He hesitated as he approached and, on a whim, he circled to the back of the building. He and Chenle had spent many days at the beginning of the apocalypse hunting for a place to stay and he was well-familiar with the structure of buildings like these, which often housed private academies for a hundred subjects.

Jisung stepped gingerly through the metal frame of the broken glass door, wincing at the sound of his wet shoes on the tiles. The shower that started when he left the lab had only gotten heavier, turning into a full-blown storm as Busan’s infamous winds howled ferociously. A sudden clap of thunder made him flinch. Jisung peeked around a corner carefully, half grateful for the sound of the storm which muffled his footsteps as much as it did for anything else walking around.

Chenle’s grinning face blinked up at him from his phone, overlapping with his location. He, or at least his phone, was in this building, but that was all he knew. The relative quietness of the place was broken by the sound of languid shuffling, a flash of lightning lighting up the shape of a hunched, broken figure seconds away from sighting him. Jisung looked around urgently and tucked himself into a half-open broom closet just as an Infected rounded the corridor.

Jisung listened, straining his ears over the sound of the storm. The Infected, a man clad in the uniform of polo t-shirt and chinos common to most middle-aged men, grunted and, confusingly enough, made a series of strange sounds that was a cross between groans and chittering. It shuffled past Jisung who huddled further in, concealing himself in the shadows. He waited until it had shuffled some distance away before emerging from the broom closet noiselessly and following after it.

He tiptoed down the corridor, following it as it shuffled past the shattered glass door of an old laser tag arcade. In the next second, he jerked back, heart pounding in his ears. Painfully slow, he peeked round the corner again, catching sight of numerous figures shuffling within the darkness. Fuck, he had stumbled into a nest. As he moved backwards, something crunched under his foot.

Jisung froze, but nothing responded, the pouring rain muffling the sound and covering up his literal misstep. Jisung glanced down and his stomach lurched as he recognized a familiar neon green Casetify case, its surface streaked with drying blood. He squatted down and picked up the case gingerly with a sense of puzzlement before understanding dawned on him. Chenle must have (correctly) guessed that Jisung would come to look for him and left a breadcrumb to signal and to warn of his position.

It’s too dark inside to know how many there truly are and Jisung didn’t want to risk setting off the howling that would draw every Infected in the vicinity. A Daiso store stood opposite the laser tag arcade, its cheerful red and white signboard visible through the darkness. Jisung stared at it, an idea forming. 

46:04:23

Plastic crackled noisily as Jisung swept every firecracker he could find into an eco-green bag. After a moment’s hesitation, he put a couple into his pocket too, just in case. It might come in handy if he needed a distraction again. Random items went flying as he felt around for a lighter urgently, tossing it into the bag too and darting out the door and into the rain.

It was pitch dark and Jisung was freezing, soaked to the bone and lashed by fierce winds. He swore to himself as he jogged through the streets, putting distance between himself and the building. If the Infected didn’t kill him, hypothermia just might.

Ducking into the entrance of a building, Jisung hurriedly set up the firecrackers, arranging them in a circle with their wicks touching. He lit it up and sprinted, shoes slipping, going back the way he did and running faster than he ever had in his life. As he reached the building, the makeshift bomb _exploded_ , the high-pitched screaming cutting through the sound of the rain and lighting up the darkness. The reaction was instantaneous, a wave of howling started up, going up and down as dark shapes emerged from the darkness, running towards the blinding lights.

The Infected poured from every corner like rats, a huge dark wave concentrating towards a single direction. Jisung crouched behind a car, careful to keep himself concealed within the shadows and away from sight as he waited for the coast to clear. As soon as the streets emptied, he cautiously raised himself from his hiding spot and sprinted for the doors. Inside the building, he abandoned discretion for speed, shoes making splotching sounds against the tiles as he made his way to the arcade. He rounded the corridor and slammed into a body.

Instinctively, Jisung shoved it away, hand flying down to retrieve his knife and swing it up. “Jisung! It’s me!”

“Chenle?” The relief that washed through him was palpable in his voice even to himself, the tension and fear popping in him like a balloon. Chenle stood in front of him, pale face shadowed and bleeding from a head wound, Jeno’s limp figure just barely held up by his arm around Chenle’s neck.

Chenle didn’t give him any time to stall, “Hurry!” he hissed, “They’ll be back soon!”

A wry grin twisted his lips. Leave it to Chenle to grasp the situation before he even needed to explain it. He slung Jeno’s arm around his shoulder, “Were you guys bitten?”

“No,” Chenle grunted as they half-dragged Jeno along, “Jisung, these Infected are different. They attacked us with weapons before dragging us here.” Chenle met his eyes over Jeno, gaze terrified at the implications, “They hunted us.”

“I knew we should have talked to you guys about this sooner,” Jeno groaned, burying his face onto Jisung’s shoulder.

The breath left Jisung in a rush. All the bits and pieces came back to him, one after another like a photo reel. The Infected the first time they decapitated one, their ability to track, the strange sounds they made, the use of weapons and how they brought Jeno and Chenle back without biting them. “They’re evolving,” Jisung said in horror. “They’re learning to think.”

“We’re probably their food supply,” Jeno said grimly, exhaling in pain when they shifted him. “That’s why they incapacitated us without biting and brought us back.”

“Food supply was running low for them just as much as it did for us,” Chenle said bleakly. “Evolution weeded out those that couldn’t think ahead.”

Jisung’s head spun with the information before a sudden snarl froze them in their tracks, distracting him. Without thinking, moving on autopilot, Jisung shoved the car keys to Chenle’s pocket. “Audi GTR, black, next to the Muji store to the right of the entrance,” he rattled off. “Go to Busan National University and call Taeyong!”

“Who’s – ”

Jisung untangled himself from them, leaping forward just as the Infected rushed towards them, growling. Jisung swung his knife up, aiming for the throat before he was thrown off balance by a blow to the stomach. The momentum of the swing continued, slashing a deep cut into the Infected’s neck. It stumbled back from the force of the blow, black blood spurting. Jisung didn’t wait for it to recover, jumping forward to stab it in the eye.

The body dropped to the ground limply. There was a tingling sensation in his midsection, Jisung brushed his hand over his stomach curiously. A wave of intense heat enveloped his stomach, and his hand came away wet. That was when he noticed the shard of scrap metal lying on the floor next to the Infected, dark with blood at the tip.

A commotion drew his attention and he looked up to see a hoard of Infected crowded at the entrance, blocking his way out. For a moment, the two parties stared at each other, utterly still. Jisung’s hand drifted to his pocket where the firecracker lay. An Infected, taller than Jisung and significantly more built than the others, growled, taking a step towards him.

Jisung turned tail and ran.

Adrenaline rushed through him, numbing any pain he might have felt and propelling him to run faster than ever as he leapt over debris and broken furniture. The lighter almost slipped out of his wet fingers as he fumbled to light the firecracker while running. Once, twice – it lit up. Jisung aimed the firecracker behind him and with a pop, it exploded, shooting down the corridor and towards the crowd of Infected who howled and scattered. A stray one, missed by the firecracker, reached him, sinking its teeth into his arm.

Jisung cried out, stabbing it and trying to shake it off. It clung to him and in desperation, Jisung drove the firecracker into its eye socket where it exploded, blood splattering. Out of ammunition, the Infected were getting up and running towards him again. Jisung dropped the firecracker, speeding up and bursting through the backdoor of the building into the freezing rain. His little pyrotechnic stunt had basically stirred up half the town and countless figures moved in the darkness. If it weren’t for the rain and darkness, Jisung might as well just lay down and wait to die.

He ran haphazardly, no time to take stock of his surroundings and figure out where to go. They were too close to him, he had to lose them somehow before he sat down and consulted Naver maps. He hesitated at a crossroad, completely disoriented without a clue on how to get back to base. At the sound of growling, Jisung abandoned all caution, picking a random alley and running as fast as he could.

Jisung ran and ran until the growling subsided. Still, he ran until his vision started to tilt. Every step felt slower than the last, as though he was running through water. His breath came in gasps, wet hair plastered to his face and pricking his eyes and hand firmly pressed against his abdomen. He still couldn’t feel much of anything yet, likely from the adrenaline of trying to escape death. A sudden wave of vertigo hit him and he swayed, veering sideways and hitting a wall. His fingers scrabbled for purchase, for some form of support to keep himself upright.

Jisung collapsed to his knees outside a bakery, body heavy and unwieldy. He struggled to his feet, staggering through the door and behind the counter. With a final burst of effort, he shouldered the door to the backroom open and slammed it shut, locking it before sliding to the floor.

Black spots swam across his vision, the edges blurring into tunnel vision. His ears felt as though they were filled with water, the sound of the storm very far away. Jisung tried to hold onto his slipping consciousness, his strengthless fingers unlocked his phone, smearing blood over the surface. He opened Naver maps on his phone, magnifying the page around the blinking blue spot. Where the hell was he? After some attempts, his fingers sliding on the screen, he located their base to be some four kilometers away, not too far, but not near enough in his state.

He unzipped his jacket, pulling up his blood-soaked shirt. An intense pain unlike anything he has ever known speared him, concentrating around the deep hole in his abdomen. Blood continued to leak out lazily as he rolled up his jacket and pressed it to his wound.

It was then, in a moment of cold clarity, that Jisung understood that he was dying. 

46:05:27

The tiles were cold.

Jisung was so cold. Sitting in a puddle of rainwater and blood, fingers and toes frozen, body slowly draining of warm blood, Jisung waited.

Just a bit more, he promised himself hazily, just let me rest a bit, and I’ll make my way home.

Home…did Chenle and Jeno make it? Jisung had to know. The screen lit up, a beacon of light in the darkness as he tapped on Chenle’s number. _This number is not available now_. Jeno’s number. _This number is not available now_.

Jisung wanted to swear, but he didn’t have the energy. Did they lose their phones? Or it ran out of battery? Jisung’s thumb hovered over the last number uncertainly. He stared at the photo, Jaemin’s handsome face, youthful and healthy, grinned brightly back at him. He pressed the number, setting it on speaker.

 _This number is not available now_.

Fuck. Jaemin lost his phone during the attack too.

Is this how it ends? Alone, not knowing if they made it, not knowing if it had been all for naught, not even knowing if anyone will know that he was here. Like a gameplay, except that you get only one life and no chances to revive, no chances to try again. It was laughably pathetic, for it to end like this, so easily and so quickly, for all that is Park Jisung to simply cease. Game over, just like that.

It’d have been nice if he had just a little longer.

Just a bit longer.

He really did like them so, and a little sad that he couldn’t have had more time with them, only time to wish that he had more. But perhaps it was meant to be like that, to go through day after day, interminably long, until it ends suddenly one day only to realize that it wasn’t all that long after all, because we spent so much time on everything else but the things that would have mattered the most to us in the end.

I lived well, Jisung told himself. I did my best. There was nothing else to do. No regrets, because even though he was alone now he had not been left alone. His grace period is up, no more left for him.

It really is just a pity, because Jisung would have liked more.


	8. Chapter 8

The boy stood at the edge of the rooftop, looking out over the grey, barren skyline. Much of the city had washed out like the paint and lights over the past years, leaving behind skeletal concrete. They say that the city resembles its inhabitants and calling it a city of the dead wouldn’t be far off from reality.

The boy’s gaze moved down. Out of habit he started mapping out the way the streets crisscrossed the ground, taking note of the important landmarks, orienting himself. As he stared, his mind drifted.

One step.

He could practically imagine how it would feel like. A rush of icy wind over skin, the burst of adrenaline as he raced towards death, a shock to the system like nothing he had ever felt before, and then nothing.

One step.

His mind would finally be at peace.

No more of trying to talk himself through the day, no more pep talks to fool himself into going through another one, no more of his own mind giving up and deciding to humour him by believing the feeble lies and forcing his body to move through another day.

It would be easy.

The boy already felt weightless, as though he was suspended in the air a moment before he dropped. Maybe it would be like falling asleep. Just to close his eyes to rest and never wake up.

No more of going through day after day carrying the pain of loss and guilt and regret and the memory of what used to be. No more of his mind being haunted, doggedly chased by the endless thoughts of what he could have done, what might have been done, what should have been done to result in something other than this. Everyone’s heading to the same end, what does it matter if he went first?

He took a deep breath. His fists clenched by his side, heart speeding up in excitement, in anticipation of what’s to come.

He exhaled, letting go of the tension and digging around in his pockets. After a moment, he pulls out a packet of cigarettes, taking out one from the few precious sticks left in the box. His fingers trembled as he lit it up, remnants of the adrenaline and he exhaled again, the smoke passing in between his lips.

It would be easy, but it wouldn’t be right.

Someone else would have to carry his hell for him, and it would be a burden he wouldn’t wish on anyone.

A presence materialized next to him, seemingly out of the blue. The person’s gaze was hard, unreadable and cold as it rested on him. Wordlessly, he stretched out a hand, palm up.

The boy’s lips twitched. He dropped a cigarette into his palm, lighting him up.

The two of them stood in companiable silence, the shadow between them unspoken and unacknowledged.

“How do you do it?” The boy finally asked.

“Like how I did many times before,” his companion replied.

“It doesn’t get easier, does it?”

“It never does,” the reply was an exhale, weary in a way that he rarely was. “But what can you do? You just go on.” The person closed his eyes. “Hold them with your heart and the person beside you with your hand, and remind yourself that they’re still here. That you’re still here.”

They stood in companionable silence for a while. “I miss him,” the boy said softly.

His companion didn’t answer.

The silence was broken by the sound of a third set of footsteps approaching them, characteristically strident. “Park. Ji. Sung.” Each syllable was punctuated by a step. The footsteps paused beside them, “I thought I told you to drop that habit,” Jaemin said in resignation. “Don’t you ever listen?”

“Pot. Kettle.” Renjun smirked.

Jaemin’s eyes rested on him, gaze piercing. “Chenle’s going to kill you if you leave without telling him,” he said abruptly. “Especially after all the running he did to save your ass.” 

“I wasn’t going to leave,” Jisung muttered.

“That’s what they all say,” Renjun joked darkly. Jisung glanced at him uneasily but Renjun only smiled, blowing out a smoke ring.

“Dinner should be ready soon,” Jaemin said, turning away. “I’ll go and give Jeno a hand.”

“Isn’t Chenle helping him?” Jisung asked, scratching at the bandage around his belly before Jaemin swatted it away.

“That’s exactly why I have to go,” Jaemin said. “I don’t know what Jeno is thinking, walking around like that when he came back half-dead just a week ago. You’d think that thirty years would be enough to put some sense into him.”

“It was either that or forcing a spatula into Taeyong’s hand,” Jisung said wryly. “Jeno’s too sweet to do something like that.”

Jisung hobbled along, gritting his teeth against the ache in his belly. Jaemin walked slowly by his side, ready to catch him. “Aren’t you coming?” Jisung called back to Renjun. There was no reply. Jisung looked back to see the silhouette of Renjun’s small figure against the skeletal shapes emerging from the ground, shadows outlined in gold.

“You guys go ahead,” Renjun’s voice carried easily over the space. “Don’t wait up for me.”

“Take your time,” Jaemin said gruffly. “Join us when you’re ready.”

“We’ll save you a share,” Jisung supplied. “Come with us, okay?”

/

There is nothing you can do to undo the past, only everything you can do to make sure that it doesn’t happen again. Do as much as you can and leave the regrets behind, because there is nothing else to be done. Make peace with your pain, because once you do there is nothing else that you will fear ever again, nothing else that can destroy you.

Make peace with your past and continue to live.

Live among the living.

/

And it’s done!! This epilogue is very short and it’s only meant to wrap up things from the previous chapter. I thought very long about whether I should end it with Jisung’s death in the last chapter because I felt that it aligned with my belief that stories should be realistic, and life hitting us out of the blue with no warning, no way to anticipate or avoid, was pretty much what normally happens.

So in that scenario, yes, Jisung would have died like that. Died not knowing anything. But in the end I decided to go with the theme running through this story, which was a theme of regret, of loss, of making peace with yourself. I focused a lot less on society issues this time and revolved more around the character growth. Someone asked about the ages of the characters and in my head, Jisung was 18 while the 00 line were 28 at the beginning of this.

In this sequel, Jisung would be 20 while the rest were 30 and Taeyong would be 35, which matches to their expected ages if this was reality. One of the things I wrote about briefly was the difference in their ages and how this affected their understanding of each other. Jisung, a 20 year old, would not be able to understand how a 30 year old feels, particularly Jaemin’s sense of responsibility towards him. He would not be able to understand why Chenle kept calling him a baby, because in this group, Jisung was truly the most innocent of the lot and there was much that they wanted to protect him from. Plus, in the scientific side, a PhD student would not have had the experience of a scientist like Taeyong to put pieces together. They would have the theoretical background, but not the training and experience. And in the process, they could also miss foundational things, which was why Jisung was able to notice it, because he had spent a lot of time memorizing the basic facts.

ANYWAYS. I promised to give a summary of the immunology and the run down of the virus and if it’s too long feel free to skip it.

  1. **Can viruses mutate that fast?**



I imagined this virus to be an RNA virus, meaning that it can mutate at ridiculous rates. The point of mutation in nature is to create a vast array of genetically different organisms and depending on the environment, one organism may be lucky enough to have the mutation that would help it survive. This organism survives and reproduces, increasing the genetic frequency (the number of times we see its genetic makeup) in the environment.

  1. **How did the virus mutate? And why did it make Renjun’s drug stop working?**



They mutate in a million ways. The key factor is the presence of a selective pressure. In this story, I mentioned in HOBI that the virus uses a sort of key to enter cells. If we imagine the virus to carry a key and the lock to be on the cells, the better the key is shaped to the lock, the faster they can enter and replicate. If the key is very perfectly shaped to a specific lock, it would be very very good at going in fast – but it might not be able to open other doors.

In AHTK, the virus was in the brains of the zombies and brain tissue was ingested together with maggots by birds. In the bird, the door would be different. For the virus to survive, it must be able to open the doors in the bird too. Now this virus is able to open not just one, but two doors.

When this virus goes back inside the human, it has more keys. There isn’t a single lock on a cell, there’s a million of them. With more keys, the virus can open the door using other locks with the new key it learned to make inside the birds.

Renjun’s drug functioned like a stone you stuff into the lock, so it could only block that one door. But if the virus can open other doors, the drug would be useless.

  1. **Is vaccination the only way to end it?**



If we’re going to be scientifically accurate, viruses can’t die. They’re not alive in the first place. Taking antibiotics bursts bacteria cells to kill them. Taking antivirals stop viruses from reproducing. So it decreases the viral load in the hosts but it doesn’t actually kill viruses. When we talk about killing viruses, it really is simply destroying it so that it’s incapable of infection, but it can’t actually die. And viruses can mutate quickly to avoid and make antivirals ineffective. That’s why vaccinations are so important.

Vaccinations are essentially tutorials. You put in a dead virus, the body learns how to get rid of it and when the actual virus comes in, the body has nets and poison in place to kill it. When you make the entire population primed to kill viruses, it becomes difficult for viruses to infect a host. Without infecting a host, it cannot replicate and increase in number. And it cannot replicate outside of a host. That was how the smallpox vaccine worked. They essentially made the entire world hostile to the smallpox virus and because it cannot exist outside a host, or infect a host at all, it literally vanished from the world.

The only way to eradicate a virus is through vaccination, not drugs.

  1. **How did they become immune through a bite? And was Jisung insane for attempting that transfusion?**



Imagine that you were Renjun and you had the lock blocked. When he got bitten, the viruses were sitting ducks. And he got bitten twice. This meant that the nets and poison (antibodies) were raised not once, but twice. The second time would shoot his antibody levels to sky high levels. Jisung, in comparison, would have been much lower. And he didn’t have the same effect as Renjun who took the drug prior to infection, so he would not have as high of a level.

Theoretically, the transfer of his antibodies into Donghyuck could have saved him by helping his body kill the virus. But Donghyuck was at a very late stage of infection and it simply wouldn’t have been enough.

In AHTK, they basically did all they could, but Donghyuck was beyond saving.

Jaemin also mentioned that if it was a different strain, it could have killed him. I left it out because it was too much for this story, but it’s something called antibody dependent enhancement and it happens in Dengue virus. Basically, you train your body to kill a virus but when a different virus strain comes in, your antibodies (which are specific to the previous strain) capture it but doesn’t kill. So your poor immune cells take in a net full of viruses that can escape the net and are now inside a cell that it’s more than happy to exploit and replicate in. And now you have three times as much viruses inside you.

Jisung had the right idea, but it was very, very risky. Then again, Donghyuck was close to dying. (And he died anyway).

That’s essentially all I have for the blueprint of the virus.

Life is a little like experiments, I think. You plan for it but things never go exactly the way you want. You just go along with it and figure it out. And there won’t be an end, no goal to hit where you can dust your hands off and declare that you’re done. It’s gets overwhelming, it looks insurmountable, and you make mistakes…and you go on. One step, and another, and another. You simply go on.


End file.
